Just North of Nowhere (32 page)

One day, an employee, a Mrs. Carrie Guttekuenst, a whore from La Crosse, took an axe to Lars. She didn't try to run afterward, but stood in the bloody pieces and pleaded self-defense, saying her boss was being rougher on her than was absolutely necessary.

Vinnie had the distinct impression that Ken's dead friend had been on the jury, was a town constable, had something to do with the case, anyway. Luckily, Old Ken tended to repeat the friend’s argument while making his own. It appeared that the guy felt, no matter what, that the Guttekuenst hoor from La Crosse couldn't get away with killing her boss! Where would THAT end?

Old Ken argued the woman’s right to defend herself; made the point that just from the standpoint of Lars damaging valuable trade goods with his fists—the La Crosse hoor, herself—that Mrs. Guttekuenst was justified in stopping him in any way she could. She was her own stock in trade for crineoutloud!

After that, old Ken fell asleep with the heat and Vinnie got not more information from this source.

Gave Vinnie a direction, though! He took a quick swing around town and out by Bunch's bridge, then headed to the library.

Now Vinnie hated that place. Dark, musty, the library and its moldy books had made him sneeze even when he was a kid. The ceilings were too high, the windows too narrow. No light. No air. And there was Ruth Potter.

He stepped in and it was yesterday: the day he'd torn the native nudes from the back issues of National Geographic; only last week he'd set off the M-80 in the middle of Webster's Unabridged on the wooden stand. Why had he done it? He was mean, he knew that. Why was he mean? He was a privileged character. He calculated he could get away with it! Bald Ruthie told him that much. Typical. Why typical? Ruth Potter didn't even have to say it: He was a boy without a mother and a father with no time. Don't get her started on that!

Even though his uniform was pretty crisp for August and he was more or less on official business, Ruthie still gave him her hairiest eyeball; still asked why, why, why every time he asked a question. Now it was about the old Bluffton records, about county history from the turn of the century, could he look through the back issues of the Eagle. Cripes. He hadn't been in the damned place since high school and he still felt like a bull in a china shop. Worse, soon as he saw Ruthie Potter, he felt he ought to say something about her bald spot to someone. It still made him laugh, dammit.

She finally showed him the reader and shoved a box of River Valley Eagle-Republican microfilm spools, Jan, 1900-June 1913, at him. She'd check it all very carefully when she got it back, so he had better be mighty careful. Why, she asked? It'd be out of his pocket, anything got ruined, she said. Could it get worse, she asked? His father would hear about it, too, she answered.

Then he had the reader to himself. He squeaked through the first half of the last year of the old century. Cool air swirled up from the basement stacks every time Ruth descended or returned. Every time she passed, she gave him that cold Ruthie stare and shook her head as though his life had already been weighed and, in the balance, been found wanting.

Then there she was, Mrs. Carrie Guttekuenst, murderer, 1912, alternately referred to as a “hostess,” “waitress” or “attendant” at the Dancing Queen Hotel in Bluffton. Mrs. Guttekuenst was arraigned on the 14th of August for the murder of her employer, Mr. Lars Dengler…

She existed. It had happened.

Vinnie cursed aloud, then remembered where he was. He rolled through the trial, week by week. It had been a remarkably long one for those days, running a full fall and part of a winter.

In the end, Carrie Guttekuenst was found guilty. There were pictures and all.

Convicted, she was sent to hang over at the county jail. Pastor Ingquist from Bluffton Lutheran saved her soul before the hangman broke her neck. She was buried in the churchyard on Eastside Hill in Bluffton.

The front page of the Eagle-Republican from the week she was put to death featured a full-figure picture of Carrie. The picture was surrounded by the other characters in the drama: her judge, the members of the jury, Lars Dengler shown behind the bar at the Queen, looking a lot boxier than his great, great whatevers, Big and Junior Cowl. Pastor Ingquist, who'd saved the woman’s soul and brought her remains to the resting place at the Lutheran cemetery, was a dishwater Swede, all muttonchops and steel-rimmed specs.

Vinnie thought her a handsome woman; tall and strong-looking, thick dark hair flared below her shoulders to mid-waist. Her eyes looked right at the camera and were wide open and alive, even in the half-tone reproduction process of the time. She was handsome. Yes, very.

When bald Ruthie a-hemm'd to tell him the place was closing, he was still staring at that face.

Vinnie handed her the box of reels, they were organized neatly, tucked and folded. “Thank you, Miss Ruth,” he said, and gave her a polite professional nod before putting his hat back on.

It was still sunny and hot as hell. Hell, it was only five p.m.

Vinnie cruised the streets. Nothing. Nothing and more nothing. Too hot for anything. For troubles anyway, he figured.

When he found himself running past Big Cowl's house for the third time, he figured he had something to say to the guy. Hell, maybe it wasn't that Cowl was one of the few people Vinnie would have called a friend; more to the point, maybe, Big Cowl was one of only ones in town would have called
him
a friend.
Can't mess with that kind of stuff
, he thought.

He sat in the car for a minute, looking over some papers. Just passing time. Cowl was sitting in his sagging nylon chair out front. He ignored the stopped prowler and Vinnie.

Finally, Vinnie got out, slammed the door, and stomped up the path to the bungalow where he and Cowl had gotten shit-faced, hell, how many times. He wished he'd brought a bottle of Stolli.

“Hey,” he said to big Cowl.

Big Cowl looked but didn't say anything.

That was damned embarrassing. “I was wondering.”

“Yeah,” Cowl said.

“Well, you know, none of this is my fault. I figure none of this is your fault. I just wondered. Wondered if we was still friends?”

Big Cowl squinted into the late daylight behind Vinnie. “Hell no, Vinnie. Hell no, we ain’t friends.”

That was that.

Then there he was, heading up Eastside Hill to the Lutheran Church. Trees shaded most of the old stones and bushes had sprouted over a lot of the topple-downs. Tannin, moss and old lichens upon old lichens had colored the soft limestone a dead green and earthy brown.

It took an hour of looking, but there she was: Carrie Guttekuenst. A few feet off was Olaf Tim.
Must be the disreputable part of the burial place
, Vinnie thought.

Her stone had birth and death dates. That was it. She came, she went, she was alone.

Nothing shook, here; there was a stone and six feet down were the old bones of a beautiful woman who'd chopped a man to bits one day and thought she'd had the right of it. Despite the chill he wanted to feel, it was sundown and August. Vinnie was sweating. Well, he was a big lug.

Nothing had answered his questions about Junior and the Friedlander killing. This wasn't going to make him a county deputy. But it sure was interesting.

The sun was flat red when it slipped over the far bluff, and damn if Vinnie wasn't still there, hat in hand staring at Carrie's stone. Carrie Guttekuenst. Just a few stones away, off where the sexton kept the graves clean and clear, were the mortal remains of Sally Friedlander. Two rows and a couple families down, were the memorials to the Dengler line.

“God damned,” Vinnie said aloud to the red sun, “just think all they've got to say to each other down there.”

There was a bird chirping. That was it.

Daddy was grumbly when Vinnie got home. It was later than usual, supper was done and the sheriff didn't like to eat alone.
Wheel of Fortune
was over and there had been nobody to bet with. Vinnie threw a couple of slabs of ham on a roll and washed it down with a Leinie.

Then he told his old man what the story was.

Then the old man got quiet and strange. Then he got up and left. Half hour later he was back with a bottle of Stolli which he cracked open and set on the coffee table between him and Vinnie.

“Turn that damn thing off,” he said about the television. Vinnie turned off the damn TV.

“Okay. Now here's the rest of the story.” he said. And he told his son.

When Carrie Guttekuenst went up to jail to await her date with the hangman she'd was a spitting vixen. She vowed revenge, revenge on everyone who'd done her wrong. Given her popularity at the Queen, that amounted to about every man in town. So her revenge was not going to be, most folks figured.

Then she got religion. The hoor got the word of God brought to her in person by Bluffton's own Reverend Ingquist who was official jailhouse preacher for all the county.

So far, so good.

Vinnie was feeling proud. He already knew this from his own research.

The old man poured a stiff one over rocks and shoved the bottle into Vinnie's hand.

“Now I guess you know that, huh? You, got it from newspapers and from listening around, yeah?”

Vinnie nodded.

“Okay then. So here.” The old man drank down the booze and drew another. “She got religion all right. That Pastor, now, he was a smart one. He'd been watching the trial; following the ways some do nowadays with them big California murders. Somewhere along the way, he'd fallen crazy for that hoor. I don't know. Maybe he was one of her secret customers, maybe he just naturally loved tall hairy women, maybe it was her scent. Anyway...” The old man was looking right through the television screen and into the back wall, “Anyway, that pastor, by God if he didn't get himself assigned to the jail. Chaplain; started going there ministering to them criminals and all before that Guttekuenst hoor was even found guilty. When she was convicted, and come up there to wait out execution of her sentence, there he was. Her connection to God.”

The Sheriff poured another big draught of vodka and handed it to Vinnie.

“Well then, she's waiting to hang. With appeals, she had herself a good time to wait her rope dance. Not like today, mind you, but a good time. Nearly a year. Something like.

“That Pastor Ingquist...” the Sheriff snorted a kind of bitter little laugh. “That dirty little man, he sort of rammed the word of God right into her if you get my meaning.”

Vinnie joined his daddy, staring at the dark TV. “So he had sex with her,” Vinnie said. “Imagine. Man of God and all taking advantage of a woman locked up! Having his way and all.”

Sheriff daddy snorted again. “One way of looking at it,” he said. “Another way is, she had her way with him. With him.”

Vinnie and his dad stared at the TV. The room got darker.

“I tell you this,” the Sheriff said, “their couplings were famous. Through all the jail, Carrie Guttekuenst and Pastor Ingquist's love shook the walls, the very walls of the place. You seen that place. You know how solid. Shook the walls! Every prisoner in the place knew when the Pastor and the hoor from La Crosse were at it.”

“Damn,” Vinnie said.

“Then her appeals were done. That was it. She was going to hang. One day, at the appointed time, she did. They dressed her; Pastor give her a proper send off. Did it professionally, I've heard. Respectful. She sang “When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along.” And they hung her. Then Pastor took her body in a coffin and drove it back to Bluffton, himself, in his own wagon.”

Vinnie was looking at his dad kind of slack-jawed. That was the drink, but he was thinking. Damn, he was thinking, she got out. Somehow. She got away.

“She was still alive,” he said, pretty sure of himself.

“Dead as a doornail,” the Sheriff said. There was a moment's stillness. A moth whacked the screen door and fluttered. “Just outside the jailhouse – and I heard this from good sources, good sources – just outside the jail, the pastor stops. He couldn't keep from thinking about his hoor, maybe I guess. Or maybe it was something they'd planned, the both of them, all along. I don't know, but just round the bend from the jail, the Pastor, he stops the wagon, opens the casket and there's Carrie; dead, but he knows something... something's alive there. And now the reverend takes his knife and he...” the Sheriff made a zipping noise and a ripping gesture with his vodka hand, sloshing a little, “...he rips her open and out comes the baby, see? His baby. The pastor's baby. A girl. Born there on the road; taken alive from her dead mother, the hoor from La Crosse.”

Vinnie was slack jawed again. This time it was more than the booze. “Nobody knew...? I mean...they would have stopped the hanging, if they'd known. They wouldn't hang a baby with the mother. Not even in the old days.”

“Nope. Nobody knew. She was a big woman. She hid it. Nobody knew. Except the hoor. And the pastor, I reckon he knew. She didn't want nobody knowing, I guess. Nobody knew. Crazy, huh?”

Vinnie nodded. “So,” he said, “how do you know?”

Daddy smiled the smile of the drunk.

“Okay, so what happened?”

“The Pastor told the undertaker. That was it. What the hell was a bachelor preacher going to do with a girl kid, a hoor's kid?”