agreed he’d do the quarterly purge of my closet on Thursday and I sent him the updated security code.
I finished earlier than I’d planned so I called my cousin Zosia, who was in town for other LI business.
We met at Spoon and Stable in the bar, since the restaurant didn’t open for another hour.
The first thing that popped into my head after my cousin demanded, “What the hell is going on at LI?” was she and Gabi would get along great. They were both strong women, working in what was typically considered a male-dominated field.
Both liked to poke my buttons. And I loved it when both of them did it.
“What do you mean, what’s going on at LI?”
“You cancelled my meeting with you.”
“Postponed,” I corrected. “But I thought you’d planned to meet with Ash today too?”
She rolled her fingers on the bartop, waiting to speak until the bartender delivered our mugs of Utepils Skölsch beer. Mugs held aloft, she said, “Skål.”
“Skål.” I swallowed. “Now start talking.”
“I’ll ask you a random question. Did you know that in addition to getting the fisheries licenses grandfathered in, that we still have a commercial distillation permit from after prohibition ended?”
I blinked at her. “What?”
“Exactly. I checked the permit with the city, county and state. It is still legal and valid. License is assigned to Lund and Sons.”
“Zoz, where in the hell did you find that information?”
“In the abandoned building that used to serve as the north branch of Lund and Sons, before it was Lund Industries. There’s an interior room that’s literally a walk-in safe, locked and chock-full of paperwork.”
“How long has it been abandoned?”
“Since prior to the computer age.”
“All the information is just sitting there?”
“The small brick building was shuttered after daddy-o let the business go tits-up. There’s a chain-link fence around it that deters vandals. Although no one from LI has stepped foot in it for years, it still gets a biweekly security sweep. Which is what got me to wondering about it in the first place.” She paused to drink again. “What could be in there that requires security LI is willing to pay for? Especially after you bailed us out and then bailed.”
“No excuses, but I had nothing to do with that decision.”
“I know. We’ve rebuilt the charter boat business and restructured the fishery. But I’ll remind you, Lake Superior freezes over. We’ve got a helluva lot of free time on our hands that we could be using to rebuild the Lund name in Duluth/Superior, not just one business.”
I forced myself to unclench my jaw and take a slow sip of my beer. Part of what I’d been doing at LI the past two years was revisiting existing LI subcompanies and properties to see what could be salvaged from within. Dealing with acquisitions remained my least favorite part of my job. But anytime I’d brought up options, such as beefing up the businesses we’d already invested years in, suggesting our investment money would be better spent there than literally buying a whole new set of problems, I’d been summarily dismissed.
Zosia set her hand on my forearm. “I see your frustration. We’ve talked about this before—you, me and Zeke. The truth is Zeke is capable of running the fishing/shipping/charters side himself. The timber side and the mining side have mostly been sold off, not a ton of paperwork or profit there for me to work with. The ag side of the Lund family is a separate entity that sells to LI, and I know no one at corporate deals with Thomas and David Lund, but both those families have things well in hand with Lund Farms. They keep in touch with me. What I don’t like is when I have to hear from the damn chamber of commerce that a Lund subsidiary purchased one of the heavy equipment companies in my town.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “You heard this thirdhand?”
“That’s why I was so pissed and wanted to talk to someone in the big three chairs at the home office. Did you know?”
“Maybe. What’s the name of the company?”
“Equipment Service Products. They make the specialty equipment for the telecommunications industry like cable rollers, boom cranes, articulating cranes and digger derrick trucks. Rumor was they were headed toward Chapter 11 and then LuTek bought them out.” She scrutinized me. “LuTek rings a bell?”
“It’s a subsidiary of LI. I’m surprised you’re familiar with it.”
“I wasn’t until someone outside the family told me about it,” she retorted.