Black House (9 page)

“It’s, um, this Racine group. Dirtysperm? And they’ve got this cover of ‘Where Did Our Love Go’? The old Supremes thing? Only they do it at like a hundred and fifty beats a minute? It’s fuckin’ hilarious. I mean, it destroys the whole pop thing, man,
blitzes
it!”

“Dirtysperm,” Henry says. “Didn’t they used to be Jane Wyatt’s Clit?”

Morris looks at Henry with awe that could easily become love. “Dirtysperm’s lead guitarist, like,
formed
JWC, man. Then him and the bass guy had this political falling-out, something about Dean Kissinger and Henry Acheson, and Ucky Ducky—he’s the guitarist—went off to form Dirtysperm.”

“ ‘Where Did Our Love Go’?” Henry muses, then hands the CD back. And, as if he sees the way Morris’s face falls: “I can’t be seen with something like that—use your head. Stick it in my locker.”

Morris’s gloom disappears and he breaks into a sunny smile. “Yeah, okay! You got it, Mr. Leyden!”

“And don’t let anyone see you doing it. Especially not Howie Soule. Howie’s a bit of a snoop. You’d do well not to emulate him.”

“No way, baby!” Still smiling, delighted at how all this has gone, Morris reaches for the door handle.

“And Morris?”

“Yeah?”

“Since you know my secret, perhaps you’d better call me Henry.”

“Henry! Yeah!” Is this the best morning of the summer for Morris Rosen? You better believe it.

“And something else.”

“Yeah?
Henry?
” Morris dares imagine a day when they will progress to Hank and Morrie.

“Keep your mouth shut about the Rat.”

“I already told you—”

“Yes, and I believe you. But temptation comes creeping, Morris; temptation comes creeping like a thief in the night, or like a killer in search of prey. If you give in to temptation, I’ll know. I’ll smell it on your skin like bad cologne. Do you believe me?”

“Uh . . . yeah.” And he does. Later, when he has time to kick back and reflect, Morris will think what a ridiculous idea that is, but yes, at the time, he believes it. Believes
him.
It’s like being hypnotized.

“Very good. Now off you go. I want Ace Hardware, Zaglat Chevy, and Mr. Tastee Ribs all cued up for the first seg.”

“Gotcha.”

“Also, last night’s game—”

“Wickman striking out the side in the eighth? That was pimp. Totally, like, un-Brewers.”

“No, I think we want the Mark Loretta home run in the fifth. Loretta doesn’t hit many, and the fans like him. I can’t think why. Even a blind man can see he has no range, especially from deep in the hole. Go on, son. Put the CD in my locker, and if I see the Rat, I’ll give it to him. I’m sure he’ll give it a spin.”

“The track—”

“Seven, seven, rhymes with heaven. I won’t forget and neither will he. Go on, now.”

Morris gives him a final grateful look and goes back inside. Henry Leyden, alias George Rathbun, alias the Wisconsin Rat, also alias Henry Shake (we’ll get to that one, but not now; the hour draweth late), lights another cigarette and drags deep. He won’t have time to finish it; the farm report is already in full flight (hog bellies up, wheat futures down, and the corn as high as an elephant’s eye), but he needs a couple of drags just now to steady himself. A long, long day stretches out ahead of him, ending with the Strawberry Fest Hop at Maxton Elder Care, that house of antiquarian horrors. God save him from the clutches of William “Chipper” Maxton, he has often thought. Given a choice between ending his days at MEC and burning his face off with a blowtorch, he would reach for the blowtorch every time. Later, if he’s not totally exhausted, perhaps his friend from up the road will come over and they can begin the long-promised reading of
Bleak House.
That would be a treat.

How long, he wonders, can Morris Rosen hold on to his momentous secret? Well, Henry supposes he will find that out. He likes the Rat too much to give him up unless he absolutely has to; that much is an undeniable fact.

“Dean Kissinger,” he murmurs. “Henry Acheson. Ucky Ducky. God save us.”

He takes another drag on his cigarette, then drops it into the bucket of sand. It is time to go back inside, time to replay last night’s Mark Loretta home run, time to start taking more calls from the Coulee Country’s dedicated sports fans.

And time for us to be off. Seven o’clock has rung from the Lutheran church steeple.

In French Landing, things are getting into high gear. No one lies abed long in this part of the world, and we must speed along to the end of our tour. Things are going to start happening soon, and they may happen fast. Still, we have done well, and we have only one more stop to make before arriving at our final destination.

We rise on the warm summer updrafts and hover for a moment by the KDCU tower (we are close enough to hear the tik-tik-tik of the beacon and the low, rather sinister hum of electricity), looking north and taking our bearings. Eight miles upriver is the town of Great Bluff, named for the limestone outcropping that rises there. The outcropping is reputed to be haunted, because in 1888 a chief of the Fox Indian tribe (Far Eyes was his name) assembled all his warriors, shamans, squaws, and children and told them to leap to their deaths, thereby escaping some hideous fate he had glimpsed in his dreams. Far Eyes’s followers, like Jim Jones’s, did as they were bidden.

We won’t go that far upriver, however; we have enough ghosts to deal with right here in French Landing. Let us instead fly over Nailhouse Row once more (the Harleys are gone; Beezer St. Pierre has led the Thunder Five off to their day’s work at the brewery), over Queen Street and Maxton Elder Care (Burny’s down there, still looking out his window—ugh), to Bluff Street. This is almost the countryside again. Even now, in the twenty-first century, the towns in Coulee Country give up quickly to the woods and the fields.

Herman Street is a left turn from Bluff Street, in an area that is not quite town and not quite city. Here, in a sturdy brick house sitting at the end of a half-mile meadow as yet undiscovered by the developers (even here there are a few developers, unknowing agents of
slippage
), lives Dale Gilbertson with his wife, Sarah, and his six-year-old son, David.

We can’t stay long, but let us at least drift in through the kitchen window for a moment. It’s open, after all, and there is room for us to perch right here on the counter, between the Silex and the toaster. Sitting at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper and shoveling Special K into his mouth without tasting it (he has forgotten both the sugar and the sliced banana in his distress at seeing yet another Wendell Green byline on the front page of the
Heral
d
), is Chief Gilbertson himself. This morning he is without doubt the unhappiest man in French Landing. We will meet his only competition for that booby prize soon, but for the moment, let us stick with Dale.

The Fisherman,
he thinks mournfully, his reflections on this subject very similar to those of Bobby Dulac and Tom Lund.
Why didn’t you name him something a little more turn-of-the-century, you troublesome scribbling fuck? Something a little bit local? Dahmerboy, maybe, that’d be good.

Ah, but Dale knows why. The similarities between Albert Fish, who did his work in New York, and their boy here in French Landing are just too good—too
tasty—
to be ignored. Fish strangled his victims, as both Amy St. Pierre and Johnny Irkenham were apparently strangled; Fish dined on his victims, as both the girl and the boy were apparently dined upon; both Fish and the current fellow showed an especial liking for the . . . well, for the posterior regions of the anatomy.

Dale looks at his cereal, then drops his spoon into the mush and pushes the bowl away with the side of his hand.

And the letters. Can’t forget the letters.

Dale glances down at his briefcase, crouched at the side of his chair like a faithful dog. The file is in there, and it draws him like a rotted, achy tooth draws the tongue. Maybe he can keep his
hands
off it, at least while he’s here at home, where he plays toss with his son and makes love to his wife, but keeping his
mind
off it . . . that’s a whole ’nother thing, as they also say in these parts.

Albert Fish wrote a long and horribly explicit letter to the mother of Grace Budd, the victim who finally earned the old cannibal a trip to the electric chair. (“What a thrill electrocution will be!” Fish reputedly told his jailers. “The only one I haven’t tried!”) The current doer has written similar letters, one addressed to Helen Irkenham, the other to Amy’s father, the awful (but genuinely grief-stricken, in Dale’s estimation) Armand “Beezer” St. Pierre. It would be good if Dale could believe these letters were written by some troublemaker not otherwise connected to the murders, but both contain information that has been withheld from the press, information that presumably only the killer could know.

Dale at last gives in to temptation (how well Henry Leyden would understand) and hauls up his briefcase. He opens it and puts a thick file where his cereal bowl lately rested. He returns the briefcase to its place by his chair, then opens the file (it is marked
ST. PIERRE/IRKENHAM
rather than
FISHERMAN
). He leafs past heartbreaking school photos of two smiling, gap-toothed children, past state medical examiner reports too horrible to read and crime-scene photos too horrible to look at (ah, but he must look at them, again and again he must look at them—the blood-slicked chains, the flies, the open eyes). There are also various transcripts, the longest being the interview with Spencer Hovdahl, who found the Irkenham boy and who was, very briefly, considered a suspect.

Next come Xerox copies of three letters. One had been sent to George and Helen Irkenham (addressed to Helen alone, if it made any difference). One went to Armand “Beezer” St. Pierre (addressed just that way, too, nickname and all). The third had been sent to the mother of Grace Budd, of New York City, following the murder of her daughter in the late spring of 1928.

Dale lays the three of them out, side by side.

Grace sat in my lap and kissed me. I made up my mind to eat her.
So Fish had written to Mrs. Budd.

Amy sat in my lap and hugged me. I made up my mind to eat her.
So had Beezer St. Pierre’s correspondent written, and was it any wonder the man had threatened to burn the French Landing police station to the ground? Dale doesn’t like the son of a bitch, but has to admit he might feel the same way in Beezer’s shoes.

I went upstairs and stripped all my clothes off. I knew if I did not I would get her blood on them.
Fish, to Mrs. Budd.

I went around back of the hen-house and stripped all my cloes off. New if I did not I would get his blood on them.
Anonymous, to Helen Irkenham. And here was a question: How could a mother receive a letter like that and retain her sanity? Was that possible? Dale thought not. Helen answered questions coherently, had even offered him tea the last time he was out there, but she had a glassy, poleaxed look in her eye that suggested she was running entirely on instruments.

Three letters, two new, one almost seventy-five years old. And yet all three are so similar. The St. Pierre letter and the Irkenham letter had been hand-printed by someone who was left-handed, according to the state experts. The paper was plain white Hammermill mimeo, available in every Office Depot and Staples in America. The pen used had probably been a Bic—now,
there
was a lead.

Fish to Mrs. Budd, back in ’28:
I did
not
fuck her tho I could of had I wished. She died a
virgin.

Anonymous to Beezer St. Pierre:
I did NOT fuck her tho I could of had I wished. She died a VIRGIN.

Anonymous to Helen Irkenham:
This may comfort you I did NOT fuck him tho I could of had I wished. He died a VIRGIN.

Dale’s out of his depth here and knows it, but he hopes he isn’t a complete fool. This doer, although he did not sign his letters with the old cannibal’s name, clearly
wanted
the connection to be made. He had done everything but leave a few dead trout at the dumping sites.

Sighing bitterly, Dale puts the letters back into the file, the file back into the briefcase.

“Dale? Honey?” Sarah’s sleepy voice, from the head of the stairs.

Dale gives the guilty jump of a man who has almost been caught doing something nasty and latches his briefcase. “I’m in the kitchen,” he calls back. No need to worry about waking Davey; he sleeps like the dead until at least seven-thirty every morning.

“Going in late?”

“Uh-huh.” He often goes in late, then makes up for it by working until seven or eight or even nine in the evening. Wendell Green hasn’t made a big deal of
that
.
.
.
at least not so far, but give him time. Talk about your cannibals!

“Give the flowers a drink before you go, would you? It’s been so dry.”

“You bet.” Watering Sarah’s flowers is a chore Dale likes. He gets some of his best thinking done with the garden hose in his hand.

A pause from upstairs . . . but he hasn’t heard her slippers shuffling back toward the bedroom. He waits. And at last: “You okay, hon?”

“Fine,” he calls back, pumping what he hopes will be the right degree of heartiness into his voice.

“Because you were still tossing around when I dropped off.”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Do you know what Davey asked me last night while I was washing his hair?”

Dale rolls his eyes. He hates these long-distance conversations. Sarah seems to love them. He gets up and pours himself another cup of coffee. “No, what?”

“He asked, ‘Is Daddy going to lose his job?’ ”

Dale pauses with the cup halfway to his lips. “What did you say?”

“I said no. Of course.”

“Then you said the right thing.”

He waits, but there is no more. Having injected him with one more dram of poisonous worry—David’s fragile psyche, as well as what a certain party might do to the boy, should David be so unlucky as to run afoul of him—Sarah shuffles back to their room and, presumably, to the shower beyond.