audacity to ask his staff—or anyone, for that matter—to refer to him as “Chef”.
“Sure, fine. I’ll have one, mushrooms on the side.”
“Be right up. Water, tea, s-oh-da?” Her Minnesota accent was thick, with the O in soda drawing out.
“Coffee please, cream and sugar.”
She nodded with a polite, though distracted, smile and merged back into the swarm of people who were begging for her attention.
Lockhart looked around at the packed diner. “Is it always so busy here? Let alone at five in the evening?”
The chief gobbled down a last mouthful of food. Any remaining gravy was mopped up with a slice of bread, until his plate was perfectly clean. Before he devoured it, he took the briefest of moments to answer. “No, not always.”
The waitress, whose nametag read “Betty,” brought Lockhart’s coffee and scuttled off again.
“So, it looks like we have some time to kill,” Lockhart said. He’d been carrying a question around in his head since he’d first arrived in town. “Can you tell me why they call this place Crazytown?”
Lockhart noticed a brief, confused look before Donaldson’s face lightened. “Oh man. Did those kids tag our sign again?”
“The city limits sign? Yes. I saw it on my way in this morning.”
“It’s not really much of a story,” the chief said, still working to swallow what food was left in his mouth.
“Humor me. Besides, it might help me to prepare for what kinds of people I will be dealing with during this investigation.”
The chief laughed. “Crazytown doesn’t have anything to do with the people of Crayton—at least not the living.”
Lockhart sipped his coffee and then added more sugar. “I’m intrigued. Go on.”
The chief cleared his before starting his story. “Well, back in the 1920s or thereabouts, around the time of the Great Depression, Crayton was built as a logging and mining town. Most of Northern Minnesota’s economy ran thanks to the Iron Range. They mined the taconite up here and shipped it all over the world from Duluth. Most people don’t realize you can get to the ocean from Lake Superior.”
Lockhart actually did know that. As a boy, his father had spent a great deal of time making the trip between Lake Superior and the East Coast, as he was paid to sail richer men’s boats for them, which was far less expensive than having the boats shipped across land. Though his father had been to Duluth dozens of times, it was Lockhart’s first visit to the place that had helped to feed him as a child.
“Anyway,” Donaldson continued, “one day, when things were getting pretty bad, post-market crash and all, when it was all getting sketchy, I mean not even the locals wanted to hang around because people were just getting too desperate, and all of the sudden, people started to disappear.”
“Disappear?” Lockhart asked.
“To tell the truth, the way my old man told it, the people weren’t missed at first. People were killing themselves all over the country. Fathers left children and wives, just up and run off. So when the town started to seem a little less full, people didn’t give it much thought, just figured it was because of the Depression. But then bodies started showing up. It was bad, because they were all torn up. Some claimed it was bears, but that was a load of bull, no bear attacks around here, ever. Still that’s what they wrote it off to. After that, weird things just kept happening.”
Betty returned to the table and refilled Lockhart’s coffee cup without bothering to ask if he wanted more. The hustle of the crowd had her otherwise concerned.
“Weirder than missing persons and random bear attack?” Lockhart asked.
The chief rubbed at the gray stubble around his jaw. “Yeah, weirder than that, believe it or not. Reports started coming in about grave robbing, witchcraft, human sacrifices, devil worship—a lot of real dark stuff, the kind of stuff you hear about in those horror movies. People were already
“Sure, fine. I’ll have one, mushrooms on the side.”
“Be right up. Water, tea, s-oh-da?” Her Minnesota accent was thick, with the O in soda drawing out.
“Coffee please, cream and sugar.”
She nodded with a polite, though distracted, smile and merged back into the swarm of people who were begging for her attention.
Lockhart looked around at the packed diner. “Is it always so busy here? Let alone at five in the evening?”
The chief gobbled down a last mouthful of food. Any remaining gravy was mopped up with a slice of bread, until his plate was perfectly clean. Before he devoured it, he took the briefest of moments to answer. “No, not always.”
The waitress, whose nametag read “Betty,” brought Lockhart’s coffee and scuttled off again.
“So, it looks like we have some time to kill,” Lockhart said. He’d been carrying a question around in his head since he’d first arrived in town. “Can you tell me why they call this place Crazytown?”
Lockhart noticed a brief, confused look before Donaldson’s face lightened. “Oh man. Did those kids tag our sign again?”
“The city limits sign? Yes. I saw it on my way in this morning.”
“It’s not really much of a story,” the chief said, still working to swallow what food was left in his mouth.
“Humor me. Besides, it might help me to prepare for what kinds of people I will be dealing with during this investigation.”
The chief laughed. “Crazytown doesn’t have anything to do with the people of Crayton—at least not the living.”
Lockhart sipped his coffee and then added more sugar. “I’m intrigued. Go on.”
The chief cleared his before starting his story. “Well, back in the 1920s or thereabouts, around the time of the Great Depression, Crayton was built as a logging and mining town. Most of Northern Minnesota’s economy ran thanks to the Iron Range. They mined the taconite up here and shipped it all over the world from Duluth. Most people don’t realize you can get to the ocean from Lake Superior.”
Lockhart actually did know that. As a boy, his father had spent a great deal of time making the trip between Lake Superior and the East Coast, as he was paid to sail richer men’s boats for them, which was far less expensive than having the boats shipped across land. Though his father had been to Duluth dozens of times, it was Lockhart’s first visit to the place that had helped to feed him as a child.
“Anyway,” Donaldson continued, “one day, when things were getting pretty bad, post-market crash and all, when it was all getting sketchy, I mean not even the locals wanted to hang around because people were just getting too desperate, and all of the sudden, people started to disappear.”
“Disappear?” Lockhart asked.
“To tell the truth, the way my old man told it, the people weren’t missed at first. People were killing themselves all over the country. Fathers left children and wives, just up and run off. So when the town started to seem a little less full, people didn’t give it much thought, just figured it was because of the Depression. But then bodies started showing up. It was bad, because they were all torn up. Some claimed it was bears, but that was a load of bull, no bear attacks around here, ever. Still that’s what they wrote it off to. After that, weird things just kept happening.”
Betty returned to the table and refilled Lockhart’s coffee cup without bothering to ask if he wanted more. The hustle of the crowd had her otherwise concerned.
“Weirder than missing persons and random bear attack?” Lockhart asked.
The chief rubbed at the gray stubble around his jaw. “Yeah, weirder than that, believe it or not. Reports started coming in about grave robbing, witchcraft, human sacrifices, devil worship—a lot of real dark stuff, the kind of stuff you hear about in those horror movies. People were already
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