Silent Service by Judy M. Kerr

Author:Judy M. Kerr [Kerr, Judy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Launch Point Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

The late morning sun beat on the dry pavement on Minnesota Highway 61. Bright blue sky opened wide overhead. Not a cloud in sight. MC was southbound from Silver Bay toward Two Harbors. Her day had begun at the butt-crack of six in order to make it to the Grand Marais Post Office, forty miles south of the Canadian border, by half past eight.

The first half of the drive was misty, like a black and white movie in the heart of London. She half expected to see a cloaked Jack the Ripper sweep into sight. Then the sun rose and the fog burned off, revealing forested areas sans Jack the Ripper.

Last day of February and the day hadn’t brought a snow squall. Lake effect snow was problematic along the North Shore. She enjoyed the ease of the dry, unencumbered highway with the still snowy outline along the sides of the road.

The postal clerk on duty when MC arrived was less than helpful. Not a negative attitude, but because she was from another town and filling in for the regular person. She had no idea about customers bringing in quantities of Priority Mail boxes or if there was a list of such customers. MC determined there were no lobby cameras. A bust, but good to know.

She left her business card and a note for the postmaster to call her on Monday morning to schedule a time to meet.

MC scrutinized the area outside the office, which was built into a hill like a bunker. There literally was no back to the building on the outside.

She stood in the parking lot. The loading dock was on the left and a glass door where employees entered and exited was about midway along the building. Through the window, MC saw a wall of silver post office boxes. The customer entrance was around the side along Second Avenue.

She faced away from the post office and spied a bank, a hotel, and a gas station across the highway. Beyond the hotel, she saw the steely vista of Lake Superior. The freshwater lake always took her breath away.

MC recalled a segment on Lake Superior shipwrecks Minnesota’s Public Radio had broadcast in the fall on the anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The host talked about how there’d been about three hundred and fifty shipwrecks on Lake Superior. Folks said Lake Superior didn’t give up her dead. More than ten thousand lives had been taken by the waters of gichi-gami, the Ojibwe name for the lake, meaning “great sea.” The name was fitting because Superior was the largest freshwater lake in the world.

The idea that thousands of people had lost their lives in the dangerous, yet beautiful, waters boggled the mind. To remind her exactly how powerful it was, the waves and crashing ice echoed. A chilly gust of wind whipped across the expanse. MC hopped into her car and pointed it southward.

Her stop at the Silver Bay Post Office was also disappointing. Ten minutes was

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