Only once had the city been threatened from outsiders, smugglers posing as legitimate businessmen. His own father had fallen for it. Once the original fish factory had closed, he’d been out of a job. Gunnar had been ten at the time and had watched his mother take on two part-time jobs to help feed the family. His father’s pride led him to take the job as a night watchman for the new outside company, and he’d turned his head rather than be a whistleblower when suspicious events had taken place. The shame he’d brought on the family by going to jail was what made Gunnar go into law enforcement, as if he needed to make up for his father’s mistakes.
It had taken two years before the chief of police at the time, Jon Abels, had taken back the city. Gunnar had been twelve by then, but he remembered it as if it had just happened, how the police had made a huge sweep of the warehouse down by the docks, arresting the whole lot of them and shutting down the operation. That day Chief Abels had saved the city and became Gunnar’s personal hero.
He drove back to the station in time to check out, change clothes and grab a bite at his favorite diner, the Hartalanda Café—he hadn’t lied to Ms. Matsuda about that—before he hit city hall for another hush-hush Thursday-night meeting of the minds. It had been an honor to be asked, and joining this committee was the first step on a journey he hoped one day to take all the way to the mayor’s office.
Sleepy little Heartlandia’s history lessons had recently taken a most interesting plot twist, and he was only one of eight who knew what was going on. The new information could change the face of his hometown forever, and he didn’t want to see that happen. Not on his watch.
* * *
Gunnar held the door to the conference room for Mayor Gerda Rask. She was the next-door neighbor of his best friend, Kent Larson, and a town matriarch figure who’d agreed to step in temporarily when their prior mayor, Lars Larsson, had a massive heart attack. She’d also been the town piano teacher for as far back as Gunnar could remember, until recently when her granddaughter, Desi, came to town and took over her students.
The city council had assured Mayor Rask she’d just be a figurehead. Poor thing hadn’t known what she was stepping into until after she’d agreed. And for that, Mayor Rask had Gunnar’s deepest sympathy, support and respect. When he became mayor, he’d take over the helm and transform the current weak-mayor concept, where the city council really ran things, to a strong-mayor practice where he’d have total administrative authority. At least that’s how he imagined it. Any man worth his salt needed a dream, and that was his.
The older woman nodded her appreciation, then took her seat at the head of the long dark wooden boardroom table. Next to her was Jarl Madsen, the proprietor at the Maritime Museum. Next to him sat Adamine Olsen, a local businesswoman and president of the Heartlandia Small Business Association, and next to her Leif Andersen, the contractor who’d first discovered the trunk that could change the town’s reputation from ideal to tawdry.
Leif had found the ancient chest while his company was building the city college. Though he was the richest man in town, he chose to be a hands-on guy when it came to construction, continuing to run his company rather than rest on his laurels as the best builder in this part of the state of Oregon. He hadn’t turned in the chest right away—instead he’d sat on the discovery for months. Once curiosity had gotten the best of him and he’d opened it, saw the contents, he knew he had to bring it to the mayor’s attention. After that, Mayor Larsson had his heart attack, Gerda stepped up and this handpicked committee was formed.
Gunnar nodded to his sister, who’d beat him to the meeting. She smiled. “Gun,” she said.
“Elke, what’s shakin’?”
She lifted her brows and sighed, cluing him that what was shaking wasn’t all good. He’d signed on to this panel, like he had to his job, to protect and serve his community. Since his family tree extended back to the very beginning of Heartlandia, and his father had slandered the Norling name, doing his part to preserve the city as it should be was Gunnar’s duty.
So far the buried-chest findings had rocked the committee’s sleepy little world. He’d heard how some places rewrote history, but never expected to participate in the process. He lifted his brows and gazed back at his kid sister.
As the resident historical maven and respected professor at the new city college, Elke’s services had been requested. Her job was to help them decipher the journal notations from the ones dug up in the trunk during construction. Apparently, the journals belonged to a captain, a certain Nathaniel Prince, who was also known as The Prince of Doom and who might have been a pirate. Well, probably was a pirate. The notations in the ship captain’s journal held hints at Heartlandia’s real history, but they looked like cat scratches as far as Gunnar was concerned. Good thing Elke knew her stuff when it came to restoring historical documents and deciphering Old English.
Across from Elke sat the quiet Ben Cobawa, respected for his level head and logical thinking, not to mention for being a damn great fireman. The native-born Chinook descendent balanced out the committee which otherwise consisted entirely of Scandinavians. But what could you expect from a town originally settled by Scandinavian fishermen and their families? Or so he’d always been led to believe.
Cobowa’s Native American perspective would be greatly needed on the committee. They’d be dealing with potential changes to town history, and since his people had played such an important role in the creation of this little piece of heaven originally called Hartalanda back in the early 1700s, they wanted his input.
“Shall we call this meeting to order?” Mayor Rask said.
Gunnar took a slow draw on the provided water. Judging by the concerned expression on his younger sister’s face he knew he should be prepared for a long night.
* * *
Lilly sidled up to the bar at Lincoln’s Place. A strapping young towhead bartender took her order. But weren’t most of the men in Heartlandia strapping and fair?
“I’ll have an appletini.” She almost jokingly added “Sven” but worried she might be right.
The pale-eyed, square-jawed man smiled and nodded. “Coming right up.”
She wasn’t above snooping to get her stories, and she wanted to start off with a bang when she handed in her debut news story, like her father would expect. She’d been casing city hall earlier, had hidden behind the nearby bushes, and lo and behold, there was Sergeant Gunnar Norling slipping out the back door. She’d watched him exit the building along with half a dozen other people including this new Mayor Rask.
She’d combed through old council reports on the town website and noticed a tasty morsel—“A new committee has been formed to study recently discovered historical data.” What was that data, and where had it been found?
The website report went on to mention the list of names. The one thing they all had in common with the exception of one Native American, if her research had served her well, were Scandinavian names that went back all the way to the beginning of Heartlandia, back when it was founded and called Hartalanda. Of course, the Native Americans had been there long before them. Yup, her type A reporter persona had even dug into genealogy archive links proudly posted at the same website.
These people weren’t the city council, but they had been handpicked, each person representing a specific slice of Heartlandia life.
She’d met the handsome and dashing Gunnar Norling today, and the idea of “getting to the bottom” of her story through him had definite appeal. Her parents had trained her well: set a goal and go after it. Don’t let anything come between you and success. Growing up an only child in their multimillion-dollar Victorian home in Pacific Heights, Lilly’s parents had proved through hard work and good luck in business their technique worked. As far as her father was concerned, it was bad enough she’d been born a girl, but for the past five years, since she’d left graduate journalism school, they’d looked to her to stake her claim