

How to Increase the Volume of the Sea Without Water

Published by E A St Amant at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition January 2012

Verses and poems within, by author

Web and Cover design, Edward Oliver Zucca

Web Developed, Adam D'Alessandro

Copyrighted by E A St Amant May 2006

e-Impressions Toronto

Author Contact: ted@eastamant.com

E A St Amant.com Publishers

www.eastamant.com

All rights reserved. No part of this novel may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, emailing, ebooking, by voice recordings, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author or his agent. How to Increase the Volume of the Sea Without Water. ISBN -13: 978-0-9780118-0-2: Digital ISBN: 978-1-4523-0273-7. Thanks to the many people who did editorial work on this project and offered their many kind suggestions, including Val Gee, Laurie Murray, Litsa Kourbetis, Lisa D'Alessandro and Robyn Lori Stephenson. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, companies, product-chronological-histories, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances whatsoever to any real actual events, or locales to persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. This book does not claim to accurately chronicle the history of the abortion pill or any abortifacient. This is the 2015 Edition.

By Edward St Amant

Dancing in the Costa Rican Rain

Stealing Flowers

Spiritual Apathy

Restrictions

Black Sand

Book of Mirrors

Perfect Zen

Five Days of Eternity

Five Years After

Five Hundred Years Without Faith

Fog Walker

Murder at Summerset

This Is Not a Reflection of You

The Theory of Black Holes (Collected Poems)

The Circle Cluster, Book I, The Great Betrayer,

The Circle Cluster, Book II, The Soul Slayer,

The Circle Cluster, Book III, The Heart Harrower,

The Circle Cluster, Book IV, The Aristes,

The Circle Cluster, Book V, CentreRule,

The Circle Cluster, Book VI, The Beginning One

Non-Fiction

Atheism, Scepticism and Philosophy

Articles In Dissident Philosophy

The New Ancien Régime

By E O Zucca and E A St Amant

Molecular Structures of Jade

Instant Sober

ToC

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter One

I was staring from Mom to the blackened, charred face of my eighth grade teacher, Kelly Williams. She had been reported missing four days ago. I rubbed the back of my head and crushed a mosquito caught in the long mane of my hair, sensing that others would rush to take its place, but I didn't move. I was thunderstruck by the image before me. The fog of mosquitoes melded with the early-evening darkness that was creeping into the ravine and softening the greens of the forest on both sides of the steep drop-off. I was thankful that I'd worn a long-sleeved shirt and jeans.

I could see tall cattails directly behind Mrs. Williams' burned-out 1978 red Chevy Malibu. The broken branches of large pines, caused by the fall of the car, had made a sort of path downward. My mother was pointing it out to Uncle Gordon, the Chief of Police in Vesey and my dad's sister's husband. My glance flickered to three or four small yellow birds, flitting in and out of the shadows, feeding on the mosquitoes–it was still too early, too light, for bats.

Mrs. Williams had been a strict teacher, but nice as well–I'd liked her, and she'd liked me. I'm what they call brainy, a know-it-all, a brownie, a bookworm, a she-nerd–I think I've heard them all, many of them said to my face. I don't have many friends, except for my younger sister and her friends. Mrs. Williams told my mom once that I was the nearest thing she'd ever seen to a perfect student. So, imagine: to my classmates, I might as well have been bacteria–but I must say, I didn't really care.

I slapped at a mosquito that was trying to fly into my ear. Mrs. Williams sat in the driver's seat all alone. The car was partly crushed, and pretty smashed-up too–indented here and there. I had an urge to step up to it and touch her. She smelled awful, and had lost all her hair due to the fire. Her mouth was stretched open as if to scream, and I couldn't really recognize her, but I wanted to whisper in her ear that she'd been my favorite teacher.

She was pretty barbequed, just like in the movies, but it didn't gross me out, or anything like that. Some fourteen-year-old girls might even faint in situations like that, but I had what's referred to as a cast-iron stomach. I'll tell you why. Mom is a state coroner in Minnesota, and she has dragged me all over St. Louis County over the years. I have seen lots of dead bodies–burned, frozen, drowned, crushed, severed, or otherwise disposed of. A bloody mess is nothing to me. I don't know what happens to the soul when you die. I don't know whether Mom, Dad, or Mom's mom, Jessie, are right about this–they all have different views–but when someone's dead, the idea of dignity appears a bit stupid to me.

Jessie would say the same thing. Jessie and I thought alike. Everybody said so, and it was true, but I always denied it. Nobody in my family really liked Jessie, and they were afraid I'd become like her. Lying about my feelings for Jessie was camouflage, and I'd been doing it since I was ten years old.

Without warning, I sneezed. "Sorry," I said in a low, apologetic voice, not really loud enough for anyone to hear. The number one rule on a death-outing with mom was: Don't bring attention to yourself! Just watch! I'd learned this long ago; breaking the rule meant hours, if not days, of verbal torture.

Ingrid, my eleven-year-old sister, refused to come out for this reason. She had been tortured once too often–her words.

It's true. Mom could go on and on in a shrill voice about how Ingrid and I had all the advantages, and how we were spoiled ingrates who couldn't follow the simplest rules, and so forth. Plus, there's the fact that Ingrid didn't like dead bodies. Who does? However, the point is, when mom did obstetrics, I saw her aid in several live deliveries. That didn't gross me out either, but if I had my choice I'd have taken dead bodies over that–at least until the baby's cleaned up and quiet. Babies were the most beautiful creatures, no matter what Jessie said, but they came into the world covered in slime and blood. One thing was for sure, all the women I'd seen giving birth screamed in pain, and their babies wailed to return back inside their mom. At least the ravine was quiet, except for the buzz of the mosquitoes.

Kelly Williams wasn't just my grade eight teacher, she is–was–also the mother of John and Paul Williams: two cool teenaged boys, older than me to be sure, but whom I certainly would have liked to know outside of school. They were polite boys, and I knew that Dad liked them. With me being so young and a bookworm, of course they weren't interested in me, even though Dad said I was pretty and the boys were starting to look.

Officer Sam Ellis came by and threw a jacket over my shoulders. He was Uncle Gordon's assistant, about thirty years old, with blonde hair. He was a widower. I really liked him, and so did a lot of other girls in Vesey.

My mom gave me a look that signaled for me to focus. She was nearing the point where she had seen what she wanted, and would have something to say. She walked around the car once more.

"I noticed two things," she said in her clear, untroubled voice– she was a powerhouse when she talked, not as potent as Jessie, but still good. "The tires are inflated, and the car landed almost directly below, though slightly to the right, of the place where it left the embankment."

Uncle Gordon grunted, as he always did at Mom's remarks, and radioed up for a pressure valve. The car was slightly hoisted on broken branches, so a flat tire wasn't obvious. Sam came down with the valve a moment later, balancing his descent on winch-wires attached to the car, and passed it to Uncle Gordon.

"The husband and the mother are here," he said, rather grim-faced.

"Back up there you go, then," Uncle Gordon said gruffly. "Keep them at bay." He checked the pressure of the tires. "Right you are, Doctor. It wasn't a blowout."

I gathered the jacket around my shoulders. "Why did she turn sharply off the road, though?" Mom said. "Maybe someone drove on the wrong side of the road and forced her off the embankment."

"I'm working with a genius," Uncle Gordon said without smiling, slapping at a mosquito. He often teased mom that way.

"Look at the front tires," Mom said. She reached into the car through the large hole that had been smashed into the driver's side window. She tried to turn the steering wheel further to the right, but couldn't. "If you turn it this way, it's locked." Uncle Gordon checked for himself, then turned the steering wheel the other way. It worked.

"That doesn't mean anything, though," he said, and slapped another bug. He sprayed insect repellent on his hands then rubbed his arms and face, passing the can to my mom, who did likewise then passed it to me. "The light is going fast," he continued. "This is supposed to be an open-shut accident scene, five minutes tops. Is there anything else?"

"Look inside, here." Mom pointed to the headlight button. "Kelly's lights are on. I'll bet she was driving at night, not in the afternoon when she was alleged to be on the road. Also, after the impact, she was alive–she burned to death."

He grunted again. "I shouldn't have asked if there was anything else." He looked more closely at the console. "How do you know?"

"By the position of her arms. She tried to get out. In addition, there's no windshield damage where her head would have hit. The flip slowed the car. All those broken tree-branches prevented the roof from being crushed. Look inside." She pointed to the seat belt. "Do you see it?"

He reached in and pulled it outward from its housing with a gentle tug. "Not really."

"It wasn't done up at the time of the fire," she said, "yet she must have worn it at the time of the accident. If not, she'd have been thrown clear out of the car, or left some imprint." Uncle Gordon tried the driver's door, but it was jammed. He looked at Mom, but didn't let out a grunt. "Also, this fire wasn't from the gas tank," she continued. "The tank's still intact. It was a propane fire."

"What does that mean?"

"I'm not quite certain." She looked over. "Let's leave everything here until tomorrow morning. We'll take a fresh look. Secure the road. Close it up before the emergency vehicles and onlookers bury what happened up there."

"The family will throw a fit."

She looked up the gorge and back at Uncle Gordon. "It's your call. We should get pictures and samples. If someone knocked her unconscious beforehand and then wheeled the car off the embankment, we've got a murder investigation."

Uncle Gordon grunted for the third time. "Are you bored?"

"I've got a nose for this kind of thing," Mom said. "Something here doesn't add up, and I'd be leery of signing off on it without another look."

"This is what I'll do. I'll post a guard and I'll close the road, but the body has to be moved." Mom ran a hand through her wavy blonde hair, and at the same time killed a mosquito on her leg with the other hand. She nodded.

"It's an accident," Uncle Gordon said. "Don't make work for us."

"You know it wasn't," Mom returned, her intelligent blue eyes shining with what I took to be glee. She took my hand and we made our way up the gorge, holding on to the winch line.

When we were on our way, I chanced a question. "Do you think she was murdered?"

"Shush," she said. "I need to think a while."

As we left the dark cliff side, I looked back at the police cruiser, tow truck, fire truck, and ambulance. A small crowd had gathered, and I saw Dave Zacroix, the town reporter for the Vesey Review, nosing around. On my right side, the bluff plummeted straight down some fifty feet into a rocky, forested embankment.

We passed some large warning signs, and the car swerved slightly as mom turned down the sharp decline. I looked ahead and tried to remain silent, but my excitement at the thought that Mrs. Williams had been murdered was too much.

"Are you done thinking?" I asked. Mom held up her hand for me to stay quiet. It was close to seven o'clock, with an hour of light left, maybe more. The sun floated above the horizon in an almost red fireball. I had seldom ever been up this way. We passed the largest sign, which faced the other way: DRIVE AT YOUR OWN RISK. Again, I glanced down into the gorge. The road seemed downright hazardous with its turns and bumps. Then another sign came up on the other side: DANGER! ROUGH ROAD FOR 2 MILES.

I spit on my fingers and rubbed it onto my mosquito bites. Only reckless people would come this way, so why would Mrs. Williams be driving up here?

"Kelly went missing Tuesday on her way home from Ely," mom said at length in a methodical voice–her work voice–"where she visited her mother. Kelly is–was– forty years old, and an associate at the town hall, among other things. An exemplary woman and, as you know, an excellent teacher. She leaves behind two teenage sons and a husband. She was a volunteer as well. She even helped your dad at the Sally Ann on occasion."

"Who would want to kill her?"

"It's too soon to ask that sort of question. Before deduction, inference; before that, induction; before that, facts; before that, more facts. Sam found her at the bottom of a gorge off Ridgeway in her burnt-out Malibu three hours ago. Her mother reported her missing four days ago. Her husband was attending a Minneapolis-St. Paul business conference at the time; however, after he returned, Gordon says he nearly lived at the shop. He wouldn't leave."

"You have to feel sorry for him," I said hopefully.

"Yes, too bad, but if you empathize, you can't be objective. I've wondered often what I would do without your father. I don't think that, in ten years of marriage, we've said so much as a harsh word to one another–but if you're going to stand in judgment of the facts, you have to learn not to be empathetic towards the victims."

"Why would anyone go this way? It's so spooky. You'd have to be brave to come out along here in the dark."

"You say the damnedest things–you always have. People come this way, I suppose, because it saves a few minutes. I wonder if it rained Tuesday?"

"It was a day like today, I think. It rained Monday, but there wasn't a star in the sky Tuesday night. I know because Ingrid and I tried the telescope and got nowhere."

"I think she came up this way later than her mother said. She had to be going home. Maybe she stopped off someplace for drinks."

"I don't think she drank."

"She's a parent and teacher with two teenage boys of her own; of course she drank. You're cute, though."

"Dad doesn't drink."

"He doesn't have teenage boys."

I had no retort for that. Jessie said my mom's explanations of things often make no sense, but are just meant to be banter. "What time did she leave her mother's?" I asked.

"Uncle Gordon said Kelly's mother wasn't positive. She thinks three o'clock. There's... what? Around sixty or seventy miles from Vesey to Ely? If she left at three o'clock, she'd be home at four or so."

"Before you went down to the accident, you thought she had a blowout and spun out over the edge, right?"

"Something like that. Clever of you, Nat. It's getting dark now. I have to stop for a moment at the station. Do you want to come? Or I'll drop you off."

"I'll come."

I walked behind my mom when we arrived, but didn't go to her office. I'm not shy, just quiet and careful. I sat in the reception area of the police station and read a five-day-old copy of the Chicago Tribune, dated May 19, 1979. The front page had been ripped out. The second page carried a story about a hurricane on the southeast coast of India, which killed six hundred people.

I remember a boy in my eighth grade class standing up and saying that we should nuke India to solve the overpopulation of the world. Miss Williams was shocked that anybody would think such a thing, but I wasn't. Jessie had already warned me that most men are ignorant.

The Indian story was followed by a story about the Red River receding in the Northern USA and Canada from its flood high-line of April 30. I hadn't heard of either of these events.

Another story recounted the aftermath of an anti-nuclear rally lead by Jane Fonda, Ralph Nader, and California Governor Gerry Brown. The march, in Washington, D.C., drew a crowd of sixty-five thousand demonstrators. My dad admired Ralph Nader, my Mom called him media-greedy, and Jessie called him dangerous.

The rest of the page consisted of a picture of the famous cooling towers at the Three-Mile Island nuclear station with the caption "An Analysis of the Nuclear Accident," and a picture of President Carter in protective gear visiting the plant after the crisis ended. This story I'd heard about. I rolled up the paper and swatted a fly that had landed on the leather-covered bench across from me.

Two of the uniformed police officers standing at the counter clapped. They had been watching me all the while. Jessie said adults did that all the time with me. She never explained why. One officer was a desk sergeant, a heavyset man named Darwin MacLean, who worked on the precinct police log as though he was searching in earnest for something. Officer Pat Wilson was a tall, gentle man, and he and my dad were good friends. He was Vesey's only police officer who came from a big city, Minneapolis-St. Paul.

It was unusual to find them there at all, let alone in the evening. They were both nice, but they were too old for me to marry. Mom said that's the way to look at men: not whether they're young, sexy, rich, or brilliant, but whether they can provide for a family in the overall sense. She meant I should look for a man like Dad, who is gentle, nice, hard-working, and faithful. Jessie said my mother was prone to flights of fancy. At first, Jessie didn't approve of mom's choice of a husband, although she came to like Dad later. In Mom's defense, they were happy, and never fought. It just went to show that you shouldn't let your mother pick out your husband; I wasn't going to.

I could see the framed police codes on the sandy white walls that ran down to the end of the reception-counter. Uncle Gordon arrived and winked at me. He had an elongated, clean-shaven face set off by large glasses, which, by habit, he always pushed in tight to his brow. He was in his late thirties and still had curly black hair, but his hairline was receding. Jessie said he was daffy.

"I'm surprised the Commander lets you out of the house this late," he said, teasing. That's Uncle Gordon's name for Dad. Dad's the fire chief in Vesey, but that's not why he calls him the Commander. Uncle Gordon always said, as a joke, that everybody in Vesey knew that the marriage between the Basle and Ruckert families brought about the merger between God and Satan.

When Ingrid first heard that, she cried.

I tried to explain that it was just a joke, but she looked me in the eyes and said with great sincerity–I'll never forget her words–"It's not a joke. Everyone knows the Ruckerts are saints and that Jessie is a witch."

My dad was a Commander in the Salvation Army, and Jessie thought that people who believed in God were irrational. I didn't think that made him a real Commander, or her a real witch. Mom said he wasn't a Commander, but a horn-tooter, and that grandma wasn't a witch, but a bitch, and even worse, a rich, powerful bitch.

On the short drive home, Mom and Uncle Gordon had a discussion out of my earshot. I yawned several times. We lived on Laird Street, in what was called the old Ruckert Mansion. When I got in, I told dad about poor Mrs. Williams.

"Have you eaten, pumpkin?" he asked when I was finished.

"I had pizza. I'm glad I didn't have ribs."

He laughed, as he did with almost all of my jokes.

Dad had the softest blue eyes, a red, nicely shaved beard, and wavy, sandy-red hair. Mom called him Red sometimes. He was the kindest man I'd ever met.

For a moment I snuggled up with him; it's where I felt the safest. Ingrid came up from downstairs with a friend who was staying over for the weekend. Ingrid had long blonde hair, but not as long or as straight as mine. It was wavy and light blonde. Also, she wasn't thin like me, but she was prettier. She already had boobs, even though she was only eleven. I was as flat as a prairie field, as Uncle Gordon might have said.

Ingrid's friend that weekend was Elena. She was a tall, thin girl like me, with blue eyes and long, straight brown hair. She was pretty as well, but she was shy with me and I knew why. She sensed that I was an adult, and to be honest, it was true. I didn't ever remember being a child. Just after I was born, Mom took the medical specialty of obstetrics, traveling back and forth to the University of Minnesota. Dad had just gotten his position with the Vesey Fire Department, so I was dropped off almost every day by Mom to Basle and Ruckerts in Duluth, where Jessie built a playroom-bedroom off of her office for me. In some sense or another, I'd been in her hands ever since.

Jessie inherited a company run brilliantly by her late father, as I learned over the years. When he passed on at the same time as her divorce from Grandpa, the company became one of the giants in American medical research. Jessie was a business genius, among other things. However, about looking after me as a baby and toddler, Jessie always maintained that I was no trouble and, really, I agreed. I didn't ever remember being much trouble–at that point, not even as a teenager.

I had become interested in boys, but so far they had shown no interest in me. I didn't do anything bad, nor did I care to. I didn't want to smoke or do drugs. What I wanted to do was gain my business degree to one day help run Jessie's company, and to find a man like Dad to marry.

Jessie and I had already made a pact that if I learned the business, I could become her partner soon after I graduated from university. I read a lot. I dove well, played the piano okay, and I was a figure skater; Mom taught me those three things. She was talented in many things, whereas Dad and Jessie were focused on goals and were only happy on the job–well, for Dad, that included being with the band as well as being a firefighter. I got that account mostly from Mom. The most important thing was, I was a happy person. Jessie said it was because I was as thick as a brick.

"Do you want to play tents?" Ingrid asked, after she and Elena found some snacks from the kitchen. I looked at what they were eating. It was sugar-coated junk. I shook my head.

It was Friday, and I intended to spend the rest of the weekend with Jessie. I almost always did. I wanted to pack, and then go to bed. I also wanted to return to the accident scene in the morning– but as Jessie never tired of saying, "You can't have everything."

After Mom showered, she played a soft pop melody upstairs on her record player.

Soon Dad would wander up. I knew their routine well. I kissed and hugged Dad, and said good night to Ingrid and Elena. We lived in a great big old house, airy and creaky, full of fun places to play. My dad wasn't much of a handy man, and Grandpa had to do the fixing. Mom said that it would be creepy to live in the same house your whole life, even after you had married, but Dad didn't seem to mind.

I watched Mom as she stood at her bedroom door until she noticed me. She had a bathrobe on, but underneath she also wore a negligee. She hid that from me. I didn't know why; perhaps it was modesty. She must have known that Jessie had already explained how everything worked between men and women, just as she did to Mom when Mom was ten years old.

Mom had a hourglass body, what's called voluptuous. She had large breasts, a slim waist, and large hips; she weighed maybe a hundred and thirty pounds. Ingrid would have that body type too. I had seen Mom naked many times, but recently she had become shy around me. I think that she sensed that I was a child-adult. I realized some time ago that she'd become bitter against Jessie over it, and I didn't really understand that either.

"Are you packed for tomorrow?" she asked gently.

I shook my head and kissed her goodnight. I packed quickly; I'd done it many times. Before I turned out the lights, I read a half a chapter of Creative Mythology by Joseph Campbell: the chapter was called "The Death-Love." Jessie had given the book to me for Christmas. True love never comes to a false heart; I believed it. I fell asleep, dreaming of Gottfried's Tristan und Isolde.

Jessie picked me up at eight o'clock in the morning in her grey year-old Mercedes Benz. I could see that it was going to be a sunny day. The air seemed clear, and the atmosphere in the car was one of surprise. Jessie wore an expensive black business suit. On her lapel, she had pinned a large silver pendant, the trademark of the company: a swan and a cygnet floating side by side, and encircled by a looping "B." She wore her gray hair tied tightly back with silver clips, and her narrow features looked severe.

Mom came out and saw us off, but she and Jessie said little to each other except small talk, which was fine with me. They fought far too often, and I hated it.

"You have a meeting today?" I asked when we were on our way, hiding my disappointment.

She nodded. "But not until noon." Her voice, too, often seemed hard. "Shall we eat breakfast at the Pickle?"

I nodded, at once cheering up. The Pickle Brine was where we often ate in the morning, and I really liked it. Diane Walker was driving that day. She was Jessie's thirty-year-old personal secretary and confidante. She looked at me with her dark brown eyes via the rear-view mirror, and waved. Diane was a graduate of the University of Chicago Business School, which I was expected to attend after high school. She was two decades younger than Jessie, and one and a half decades older than me. She weighed not much less than Jessie, and not much more than me. Her short, almost boyish jet-black hair and flamboyant makeup drew attention to her wherever we traveled. It often made her face appear thin. To me, her bluntness in conversation seemed to exceed Jessie's, but that was for the best. Nothing worked with Jessie except for unadorned, downright directness.

I told them the story of Mrs. Williams.

"Mom thinks it was murder," I said when I was finished.

"Her husband did it," Jessie said.

Even though you had to be careful around Jessie–she was touchy about her biases–Diane and I both laughed.

"What?" Jessie asked.

"I think he has an alibi," I said.

"We have an exciting weekend planned," Diane said, heading off disaster.

"We're going bowling before supper," Jessie said. "We're eating at Barklist's and then it's off to see the wizard, the wonderful Woody Allen."

This was music to my ears. Bowling was one of my favorite things to do with Jessie and Diane. They were funny when they bowled; not very skilled, just lively. It was an outlet for them, I guessed. We bowled at Holcomb Lanes, and sometimes we used glow-in-the-dark balls and giggled like school-girls–well, I was a schoolgirl, but that wasn't the point. I had dreamt about those glow-in-the-dark bowling balls all year long. They would light up my Christmas tree, becoming balloons and taking the tree away into the heavens. Underneath the tree remained a herd of porcelain gazelles, who came alive under my touch and followed me around in the backyard of the old Ruckert Mansion as I quoted St. Francis of Assisi's "Sermon to the Birds."

Barklist's was a restaurant where everyone knew our names, and they would make anything we ordered. A beautiful woman played a violin and her friend played the piano; the music was great. As for Woody Allen, his new movie was Manhattan. I had really liked Annie Hall, and had tried to dress like the title character for a few weeks. I had the hair for it, and similar facial features. The problem was, so Jessie said, I wasn't neurotic, and that wasn't something you could fake with any success around her. She wouldn't have let me get away with it for a second if I'd even tried. Above everything else, she hated phoniness–even more than organized religion, which she called unionized superstition.

The city of Duluth, Saint Louis County, lay low at the western end of Lake Superior on the mouth of the St. Louis River. It had a population of ninety thousand people. It shared a lake port with Superior, a smaller neighbor in Douglas County, Wisconsin. They were called the westernmost gateway to the Great Lakes, and were linked to the Atlantic Ocean by the Soo Locks and the Saint Lawrence Seaway.

As Jessie often said, it was an inexpensive place for business distributors of iron ore, grain, coal, oil, and lumber, as long as they got everything done in the spring and summer; the port was closed by ice during the winter months. This didn't affect Basle and Ruckerts, known in Duluth as B&R; they did little shipping by water.

Duluth had a ballet company, a playhouse, and an orchestra, all of which I'd seen several times with Jessie and Diane. The Pickle Brine, the Basle Building, the Onton Theater, and Holcomb's Bowlarama were all within reach of the harbor district, but Jessie's low-rise condominium, the Grenada Complex, was perched in the tourist area on rocky bluffs five hundred feet above the lake. It had splendid views from her balcony of both the city and the lake. I liked Duluth, even though it was a little dull in winter–but of course, not as dull as Vesey.

Jessie's condo had a nice pool, a billiard-games room, a sauna, and a weight room with a small jogging track around it. The people dressed fashionably in Duluth. Jessie said they were most affected by opinion and business in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Chicago, and Detroit. The St. Louis River was enormous, wide, and went on for miles. You could take a tour–it was cheap and lots of fun, especially with Jessie and Diane. They were very funny.

At the Pickle, I ordered pancakes with blueberry syrup. Jessie ordered coffee and toast, and Diane just tea. I saw that they had come here for my sake. That meant they had office work to do. I'd been fooled: it was going to be a boring morning. I had little schoolwork to do. I'd brought a famous novel with me, Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott, but was having trouble getting into it. I hadn't brought Creative Mythology–that was for bedtime reading in Vesey–but Jessie's office held many books that I hadn't read.

As we were making our way to the side garage door to the Basle Building, several men dressed in ski-masks ran at the car from both sides and egged it with maybe a dozen eggs. It was frightening and I almost cried, but Jessie didn't look uneasy at all.

"So much for freedom of speech," she said wryly, and reached over and squeezed my arm. "If they're so concerned about fertilized embryos, they should find another symbol besides eggs."

"You're not going to be happy until they pick up guns against us," Diane said harshly from the driver's seat. "I don't think you realize how many crackpots there are out there. You have to stop provoking them."

"What happened?" I asked, alarmed.

"I told a local paper that I'd fund a free abortion clinic," Jessie said, "if the general hospital turned away any more women who wanted an abortion."

This is what scared me most about Jessie. She was willing to stand up for her beliefs, even if it brought her into danger. It was as though she didn't love me as much as I loved her. She was the most important person in my life, and I expected that I was the same for her. But maybe she didn't understand that kind of love. I tried to remember if she'd ever told me that she loved me.

"Don't you worry, my little kettle of fish," she said, eyeing me. She often called me that. "We'll have this egg washed away lickety-split." To my surprise, Diane pulled into a part of the garage where there was a tap and hose. She turned on the water and at once washed off the car.

"How many times has this happened?" I asked.

Jessie smiled quickly. "This is the third time."

Twenty enormous potted tropical plants lined the walls of Jessie's office, almost blocking the doors to the washroom and the back entrance. They grew high and gave the room a strange sense–especially when combined with the two large aquariums on either side of the room, each containing dozens of large, colorful angelfish, among others.

Two separate things impressed me whenever I visited: Jessie's intense presence, and the plants and fish that surrounded her. The office was a cocoon protecting me from the chaotic world; I felt safe. Jessie said that Mom wanted to be my friend, and Dad wanted me to join the Salvation Army. I looked to Jessie for every form of correct behavior, even the most minute clarifications–and as though to oblige, she had a rule for every occasion, including the most remote or weird. Beyond this, she seldom criticized my parents, which was good. I loved them both dearly, and probably more than they loved me.

Jessie had transformed my playroom into a sort of hideaway, with flowering plants, a small library, a television, a bar, and a music area with hundreds of classical records. I hung my purse on the tree-hook, and fixed Jessie a coffee and Diane and myself a tea.

"This week we'll be learning the 408Ks," Jessie said, "the most complicated of the branch auditing overviews."

We worked for two hours, and then played a few games of chess. Jessie's meeting lasted until four o'clock. I read the whole of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Bowling was great fun, and Manhattan was just tremendous. I hoped that when I was older, I could marry a mature man like Woody Allen: one who was intelligent, kind, had a sense of humor, and liked Alfred Hitchcock movies.

I had to get back to Vesey by noon on Sunday for a diving meet, so the trip was more rushed than usual; Sunday morning was the time that Jessie and I would usually watch cartoons and eat breakfast in bed. On Monday, I started my second last week of grade ten– only the examinations were left for the next three weeks, and my average exempted me from all of them. I had a summer job lined up at the Kiwanis St. Louis Public Pool starting on Independence Day, as a swimming instructor and lifeguard. I would be working thirty hours a week. But before that started, I'd chiseled out two weeks of free time for myself without anyone realizing it, myself included.

On Wednesday, I skipped school to go to Kelly Williams' funeral. I wore a black dress, and sat in the middle pews. I watched Paul and John Williams at the front of the church with their father. Stacy Williams seemed dull, from his bald spot with his remaining grey hair cut short, to his unremarkable face, to his pale blue suit. Yet for all that, he was not pale, nor was he unattractive. It was hard for me to own up, and to be truthful, I'd always liked him. However, Jessie had placed the idea in my mind that he'd killed Mrs. Williams, so I was biased against him. Even though I'd laughed at the idea that he was the murderer, Jessie was a genius, so you couldn't discount anything she said. I noticed that his stomach protruded, yet not to an excessive degree. Normally, I wouldn't have noticed this. He wore a moustache; still, at the same time, it was really thin, as though he couldn't make up his mind whether to have one or not. He wore glasses as well; exceptionally ordinary ones. He looked anxious, but his eyes were alert, like those of a mouse about to be trapped by a cat.

The two sons were both attractive, but seemed opposite in every way. John was much taller than Paul. His hair was short and he was tall and trim, a pale, lean, methodical type compared to his younger brother. Like me, John got snubbed, being rather timid, or so I had heard. Everyone whispered either of two things about him– that he was very religious or that he was gay– but in my eyes neither one detracted from his attractiveness.

Paul's eyes were keen, like a sparrow's. He was exceptionally cute and cuddly. He looked out across the almost-full Anglican church without flinching. He wasn't timid at all–I, and anybody else, could see that at even a glance. He stood shorter than his older brother by about five or six inches, and weighed less. I'd seen him at the pool, and he was slim and well-developed.

Like me, John and Paul had both been raised in this mining town from birth. The places on the iron circuit around Vesey had been hard hit over the years by the lessening reserves at Hull Rust. Farming and fishing fared similarly, and many of the miners and workers had commuted north on Highway 169 to the Vermilion Range. Vesey retained its population over the years, but few of its original inhabitants.

Everyone sat back as the choir sang. Some young men–by appearance, pallbearers–were dressed in black suits and sang with the choir. From where I sat, I could see the front altar and hear Reverend Crawford.

Outside, the sky was clouded over, and the place struck me as a bit gloomy. A schoolmate I'd happened upon on my way over, Maggie Trilby, had told me that Kelly Williams' death was under investigation by the coroner's office as a possible homicide. I pretended to be ignorant of it, and sure hoped I wasn't going to be blamed for leaking the story.

"They say someone forced her car off Ridgeway Road at the gorge," she said.

"Is this a joke?" I asked coyly.

"Of course it's not a joke." Her normally agreeable face became completely serious. "It's just a rumor, but they say that Stacy Williams is a suspect."

My shock was genuine. From Jessie's mouth to the streets of Vesey. I suddenly felt strange. I said goodbye, and now, here I knelt, the murderer possibly standing in this very same church.

After the ceremony, I went to the lowering, since it was close to the church. In the open air, with perhaps a hundred people gathered around, it became clear that there was a rift between Stacy and his sons.

They stood away from him on one side of the coffin. He came around to stand beside them, and they moved away again. He was flustered, and hung his head, crying aloud. It was embarrassing for everyone involved, and we all did our best to ignore it.

John Williams took out a single white page from his shirt pocket. "I'd like to read to you a poem I wrote after I learned of my mother's death," he said in a barely audible voice. "In Autumn When the Leaves Desert My Town."

I moved up to listen as he recited it. His timid voice trembled, but grew stronger as he spoke.

"The government of my happy life fell into decay.

Vultures nest in its wings while the leaves all slip away.

Dungeons of my darkened dreams are piled in stacks of scree,

The halls of justice perch upon the limb of its empty tree.

The winter of my larceny sows the seeds of a stifling age,

And cold are the corridors of the vents and ducts of rage.

My castle curtains sway along the slippery window sill.

The beaming structures of its fortress are frozen by the chill.

Borrowed time banquets beyond the courtyard of my guards,

Their long lanky bones are buried beneath barren disregards.

Whenever the glaciers rise, they bury the hills into lakes,

And the blue-blooded voice of our hate suddenly awakes.

My monuments of autumn may not last the morrow night.

The sleet will soon slander the haunted house of its delight.

The park of my resistance is in the province of deceit,

The mingling past-time of the nation, snow-covered in conceit.

Spies of my best-kept secrets have left for arctic caves.

The pendants on their crystal-cradles carried them to graves.

The towers of intemperance have twisted and tempted fate.

Snow-flakes the size of countries have revolutionized my state.

Now my fellowship of frost is the crinkle of far-off furrows,

Around the architectural bastions of hearts buried in the burrows.

In mitigated silence, I watch the social structure reclaimed,

Near the niveous Nazis and the chilblain of exchange."

The anger leapt out of it, and I thought the poem was extremely depressing. I realized that, soon after he learned of his mother's death, his mind must have bent toward his father with suspicion.

I returned home and found Mom there. I told her what I'd heard and seen.

"I can't discuss this case with you, dear," she said. "You understand that, don't you?"

I nodded. "If it goes to trial, I want to go."

That evening I phoned Jessie and told her everything that I knew about the case.

"I knew it was the husband," she said. "You should never laugh at anything I say unless I'm making a joke."

I laughed and said good night.

The next day, I returned to school. The gossip was everywhere. It was rumored that John and Paul had gone to the police and turned their father in. I heard from one student that they were eyewitnesses, and that they helped plan their mother's murder. From another, I heard that they contradicted their father's alibi– and from still another, that they had nothing to do with it, that it was Chief Gordon Spade who had single-handedly figured it all out. Nobody mentioned my mom's name, and I was happy in that regard.

Jessie was away and I was stuck in Vesey for the whole weekend. The next week went by with an increase in gossip, but with no hard news.

On Saturday morning, June 8, I accompanied Mom to the Vesey Police Station– only this time, we sort of snuck in the back way. I soon discovered that out-of-town reporters, along with Vesey's own Dave Zacroix, were gathered in front.

Zacroix was a tall reporter with light-brown, short, curly hair. He wore wide glasses that highlighted his large, intelligent eyes. He was clean-shaven except for a little triangular beard below his bottom lip, and he had a pierced ear with a diamond stud. He was about twenty-three years old or so. From his appearance, he seemed to me to be part mischief-maker as well as newsman.

Mom called him a Sunrise Republican, but she called Jessie that too, especially when Mom was angry at her. I didn't know what it meant. Dad said it meant that they were Goldwater Conservatives, but Jessie said it was meant as an insult and was just empty rhetoric.

Uncle Gordon introduced me to Liz Heinrich, the St. Louis County prosecutor. I'd seen her before around town; she was what Mom referred to as an icon in the county. Her light silver hair had been pulled into a long braided ponytail, and she was dressed elegantly in a brown two-piece short-skirted suit. Liz favored one leg when she walked. She looked fragile, tall, and charming, yet Mom had told me that she was aggressive in the courtroom and gave her opponents a hard time.

"We're all set," Officer Pat Wilson said, coming in the front entrance of the station.

"Cathy, you stand to the right of Liz," Uncle Gordon said quietly. "I'll be on the left. Liz will make the announcement and answer a few questions."

I left through a side door, and ran around to a maple tree at the front. I climbed onto the first branch.

"Today, the Vesey Police have arrested Stacy Williams," Liz said after introducing my mom, Uncle Gordon, and herself, "acting on the District Attorney's Office indictment of first degree murder in the homicidal death of his wife, Kelly Williams. As you know, murder in the first degree involves a deliberate, premeditated design to cause the death of the person. We will be seeking a life sentence. We'll take a few questions now."

"When is the court date?" Dave Zacroix asked in a calm, deliberate voice.

"Arraignment on the indictment is tomorrow and the trial date will be set then, we hope."

"Does that mean you know there will be a not-guilty plea?"

"Yes."

"Who is representing Stacy Williams?"

"Baxter Lambertolios."

"Is it true his two sons will be testifying against him?"

"We have no comment on that."

After five minutes of such questions, Liz, Mom, and Uncle Gordon returned inside.

The reporters quickly dispersed. I jumped down from the tree and caught sight of Paul Williams going into Nick's Variety Store across the street. He'd been watching from a distance. I crossed the street to buy a popsicle, but once inside the shop, he passed me twice without a glance. I told myself that he was distracted.

I saw John and him at the arraignment the next day. I'd never seen the judge before, Ian Morrison, but Mom knew him. Ian had a large, kindly face, crowned by a tuft of thick white hair. He lived near Clearwater Beach on Grand Rapids Lake.

When he spoke he seemed genuine and straightforward, but he smiled as well. He was a big man, three hundred pounds or so, and had intelligent eyes. Mom said he was strong in the courtroom, but also polite and kind. He looked comfortable in his black robe, and he reminded me of Santa Claus, only without the beard. Stacy Williams, on the other hand, looked sad and defeated. He spoke to no one through the entire procedure, not even his lawyer. He just kept looking down at his shoes. The court date was set for July 15–thirty-six days away–and after the judge went to his chambers, we left the courtroom.

I took a noon bus to Duluth and let myself into Jessie's condo, being careful not to accidentally set off the security system. That would force her to return to the suite, which would infuriate her to no end. I hadn't made the mistake a second time, yet.

Jessie had twelve large prints of famous paintings hung throughout the apartment, and an enormous collection of music and books in the den. She was proud of the six Christmas cacti that she grew. They were lined up along the windows, and they bloomed every year in December. There were no other plants that she kept at the condo, and certainly no pets. As she said many times, she spent more time at the office than at home.

Placed among the soft silver leather of the sofas, couches, and chairs were pole lamps custom sculpted by a Duluth artisan–but what I liked most about Jessie's place, more than the beautiful large print of the 1750 painting Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan by Thomas Gainsborough, more than the overall luxury, more than the soft pastels or the suite's peacefulness, were the dried flower arrangements. Whether they were large or small, the blues and pinks were drawn out as though from the walls and paintings, and their silver bases melded into the grey plush carpets and the soft colors of the walls and prints.

I poured myself a cold fruit punch and unpacked, then went downstairs for a quick swim. At around four o'clock, I fell asleep reading an abridged edition of Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame on a sofa chair directly under the print of George Inness's 1875 work Peace and Plenty. Jessie woke me when she arrived with Diane, and I stretched as she turned on a few lamps.

She came over and kissed me. "When did you get in?"

"A couple of hours ago."

"Come into the kitchen, we'll gossip and cook some penne and shrimp." They poured some red wine for themselves, and I saluted with my fruit drink. I could drink wine with them if I had wanted, but I hadn't gotten used to the taste yet and Jessie never insisted.

"We've got a surprise tonight," Diane said. "Jessie's bought a videocassette recorder, a JVC– and if we can get it going, we're going to watch Jaws. We've got popcorn to pop, and we even bought you a Tahiti Treat."

I laughed in excitement and went down to the car to help Diane bring up the VCR. While Jessie cooked and set the supper table, Diane fiddled with wires, trying every possible combination, and I helped out where I could. Just before supper, Diane got it working. I had no plans for the next day, and so I stayed up late with Jessie.

Sometimes she'd drive me home and stay for Sunday supper with the family, but that Sunday she had a business appointment in New York City–and with Jessie business was always first.

"It fuels my dreams," she said to me once.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I'm in it for an ulterior purpose. Money signifies nothing if it's a means to an end, as it is for me. I find pleasures to get me from one day to the next, just like others do, but I don't live for pleasure itself. Fame and power, they're jewels for fools. What I seek is the cultural transmission of an idea. B&R is the vehicle which can make that possible."

"What idea?"

"When you come to work and live with me, then I'll tell you everything."

Chapter Two

I was home by three o'clock and no one was there but Dad, who was cleaning his French horn in the den. He had a quote written on a poster above his desk. It read, "He has never perfectly renounced the world who keeps hidden in his heart, the treasure of his own will." I thought it came from Grandpa Ruckert and was about obeying God. Where Dad got it, I didn't know. Dad's den was a large room containing not only a desk but also a couch, a worn card table and chairs, an old record-player, a small black-and-white television, and a bench for building model rescue vehicles that were displayed in a glass-enclosed case hanging on the largest wall, the only new piece of furniture in the room.

"How are you doing, Pumpkin?" he asked. "You're home early."

I shrugged. "We were up late last night. I thought I might sleep for a bit and then shower before we leave for Grandma and Grandpa's. Jessie bought a VCR, and we watched Jaws. I'll never be able to go swimming in the ocean again." He smiled, rising to hug me. "Any news on the Williams case?" I asked.

"Your mother is going to be called to testify. So will the Chief."

"Will Uncle Gordon be at Grandpa's tonight?"

"Should be. Six sharp."

I slept for an hour and then got ready for our Sunday dinner. Ingrid wore a summer dress. It was a bit too tight–you could see the outline of her curves. She looked like the Shirley Temple version of a little tart. Mom and Dad both wore jeans. I wore a pair of shorts with a white blouse, and put my mane in a ponytail. We arrived at Grandma and Grandpa's house–Victoria and Gerald Ruckert's place, also called the new Ruckert mansion–at six o'clock. Grandma greeted us at the door with hugs and kisses. She was a small woman, five feet and a half or so, and she was slim with light, blonde-gray hair done in waves that framed her narrow face. Her light blue eyes were kind and always focused, and she spoke with a mild German accent. Behind the formality, her facial expression was one of benevolence that, as far as I was concerned, was carried straight from her heart to her face–no matter what Jessie said about her. I loved her dearly.

The house wasn't all that large, but it was custom built by a St. Louis County builder and architect, Alistair Roger. It was located on a jut of rock on the bank of Little Deer River, and it cost them one million dollars before it was done. Jessie called Alistair Roger a Frank Lloyd Wright wannabe who charged far too much. Even though I didn't know who Frank Lloyd Wright was, I loved the house. It had hidden nooks and three or four accesses to each floor. The spare bedrooms were on the third floor, and that's where we could play incredible hide-and-seek with our cousins. Plus there were balconies inside the house overlooking the living rooms where we could put on plays or, at Christmas, sing chorals for the folks below.

A unity existed among the members of the extended Ruckert family, which just as obvious to me as the tension between Jessie and Mom. But I must say, with Jessie, there was almost always tension, no matter who was involved; it even appeared between her and Diane sometimes.

Grandpa was foremost a handsome man; a bit round, but not overweight as Jessie had accused. He had strong gray eyes that revealed his clever wit, determination, and generosity. Jessie once called him a crook, but after I began crying, she never said a negative thing about him in front of me again. He wasn't a crook. I thought she said that because when she did business with him in the beginning, she found him much shrewder than she thought he'd be. She didn't understand or trust Christians.

The Ruckert family had little left in the way of running the business after Jessie gained control. Grandpa did still manage the Ruckert pharmaceutical distributing center in Vesey, but Jessie told me that was to keep him off the board; however, the Ruckerts did own stock, and somehow Grandpa got on the board anyway. I didn't know the full story behind it.

What I did know was that Jessie had tried unsuccessfully to buy them out several times since then. Her plan was to have a board of directors who came entirely from outside the company and owned no stock–all except her. She maintained that to have a world-class international corporation, control of the board was unnecessary, but outside advice and criticism was instrumental. I didn't understand this until much later.

Uncle Gordon arrived with Aunt Brenda, and their two boys, Joseph and Peter. Aunt Brenda was an enormous woman, already nearing three hundred pounds. Jessie said that Brenda aimed to put on a pound a month, so that by the time she reached seventy– "if she ever reached it"–she would weigh seven hundred pounds: "Twelve pounds for every delicious year!"

That pretty much described Jessie's humor, and if you didn't think that was funny, or at least cute, you probably wouldn't like Jessie very much.

My brown-haired, blue-eyed cousin Joseph was twelve years old. He had fine-looking features and an easygoing personality, neither withdrawn nor annoying nor shy. Jessie called him cautious, although he was fiercely competitive with his year-younger, blue-eyed, blonde-haired brother, Peter, who Jessie called her cutey-pie.

"There's no religious vocation in that boy," she said just a while ago, and it was true. Peter was our kissing cousin, and one time while hiding in a closet with him during hide and seek, he stole a kiss and tried to put his hand on my bum. I bit his arm until he ran away in tears.

As always on Sunday, the live-in housekeeper, Kate Walker, helped Victoria serve dinner. Kate was connected to the family through the Sally Anne. Her husband had been killed by police two years earlier in Hibbing, during a botched robbery. She was a decade younger than Grandma, and had a son, Jacob, born four years ago. By chance, Jacob was with his grandma tonight.

Kate was a different story entirely than Victoria and Gerald Ruckert. She looked frumpy, but Jessie said she was intelligent and that hard work was her only real creed. She was a serious woman with plenty of sadness, goodness, and devotion to the family. She seldom laughed.

Jessie maintained that people who don't laugh are dangerous. I didn't know why.

Kate wore dull slacks and blouse with a brand new green apron. She and Victoria served leg of lamb, grilled stuffed salmon, and lasagna (my favorite), salads, hot garden vegetables, and candied yams. When we were all seated, Ingrid chimed in:

"God bless us and keep this wonderful family humming,

Now grace is done, keep the food a-coming."

We laughed. Grandpa cleared his throat and recited grace more formally, and then we ate.

"Nat achieved second place in the St. Louis County Dive-off this week," Mom said, after conversation had started in earnest and the plates were full, "and Ingrid ran third in her category cross-country competition, against twenty-two other runners. Imagine!"

This was truly my mom's only weakness as a parent as far as I could see, although Jessie criticized her on many fronts. Mom had Jessie's logical powers, she was a brilliant doctor and a wonderful mother, but she just couldn't stop bragging about me and Ingrid–even though we both hated it and had told her so many times.

Congratulations were mumbled all around the table, and Ingrid and I traded glances, both red in the face. Parents generally don't understand the need in children for equality. They see the untamed rivalry between kids and assume that outside the 'tribe' (Jessie's word for family), it makes them islands unto themselves, but the opposite is true. Jessie had said this many times to me: "All children are communists at heart. They don't understand proprietary rights on any level."

I had to look up 'proprietary' in the dictionary, but I already knew what 'communists' were from Grandpa. He'd told me that they were people who believed in something for nothing.

Jessie often quoted Milton Friedman, especially the expression 'there's no such thing as a free lunch,' which I didn't really understand.

I wanted to ask Uncle Gordon about the Williams' case, but knew that Mom would be furious with me if I did. I settled on a tactical plan to have the boys stay up later with us. Brenda and Gordon were strict with the two boys, and they were in bed by eight thirty or nine tops, even during the summer. They complained to Ingrid and me often about it, and we agreed that it was cruel. I often tried to help them with later nights on Sunday, but when school was in it was almost impossible.

"Aunt Brenda," I asked when there was a let-up in the banter around the table, "Jake and Alexia are coming over tonight to play Kick the Can. They can't come until eight o'clock, though, and we wanted to play within the block boundaries." I pretended to hesitate, to be nervous. Jessie had shown me many negotiating tricks.

"Always hide your hand," Jessie had said emphatically, "even when trying to get an extra scoop of ice cream out of your parents. If you say, 'It's fattening, and anyway we can't afford it, even though I'm kind of hungry,' then what are the consequences? Your parents are shamed into buying you two scoops. Do you see the logic? Just don't try this trick with me. I'll rip out your tongue."

"What, dear?" Brenda said kindly.

"Never mind," I answered, "it's too much."

"What?" Uncle Gordon asked in an even kinder voice. The table was uncharacteristically quiet. "Well, I know it's a school night, but grade-school report cards are already done, and it's the last week. There is no real homework next week. We would need two hours at least. I mean guaranteed, before we started."

Mom frowned, but kept silent. I never much tried these tactics with her; after all, she was raised by the woman who taught them to me. An immediate discussion took place around the table. I signaled to the boys to cross their fingers and remain quiet.

"Can you stay 'til ten o'clock?" Brenda asked Dad, who was her brother.

Dad scratched his beard and looked at Mom. "That should be okay. What do you think?"

She shrugged. "It depends on whether Gerald can stay up that long."

Laughter followed. "If I need to get to bed earlier," Grandpa said, "I may go out and kick the can into another neighborhood. It's okay with me. Let the children play."

"It's settled," Victoria said. She rose and looked at Kate. "Let's serve dessert on the back porch."

I had won, and wished Jessie had been there to see it. Jessie and Diane did occasionally come for Sunday supper, usually on holidays like Independence Day–well, not this year–Christmas, or Easter, but Mom often said that having Jessie and Diane over made it mind-boggling, and even Jessie knew it. She always came late and left early.

Jessie drove the Ruckerts crazy. Anybody could have seen that. She was grouchy about a lot of things, and if you brought up religion or god, watch out. She called herself a militant atheist and wasn't ashamed to argue about it in public, no matter who was present.

We had a full moon for our game, and for two hours, I became totally lost in it.

I slept well on my first day of holidays. I spent the day accompanying Mom to a delivery at St. Louis County General Hospital. The young, unmarried, overweight woman, Fiona, wanted Mom to give her baby girl–Fiona knew the sex of the baby beforehand–to a "nice family." Her common-law boyfriend wanted a boy. Mom arranged for friends of the Ruckert family, the Mountbars, to take the baby, whom they called Mary. The baby was beautiful.

Jack Mountbar was about forty, and he was on the board of B&R. Years ago, after her divorce, Jessie had an affair with him. That was before he married a much younger woman, Julie. I didn't know what happened exactly, but Jessie now hated him with a passion. Jessie called what Mom did, giving Mary to Jack and Julie, a sheer act of adolescent rebelliousness against her.

"Why didn't Fiona have an abortion?" I asked Mom when we left the hospital.

She looked suddenly grim-lipped. "More and more each day you sound like Jessie. Fiona's a Catholic, and Catholics aren't allowed abortions. In her faith it's a mortal sin; murder."

"She could give away a dozen girls and not have a boy," I said. "It's beyond belief."

Mom sighed. "She doesn't manage her life right. She fell in love with the wrong man."

I chimed,

"Fiona has got some bugs,

I think they're liquor and drugs."

Mom laughed. "Where did you hear that from?"

"Ingrid."

"I've met Fiona's boyfriend. I can tell you, just between you and me, he's a piece of work."

"She wants to supply some earth for his plowshare."

Again she became grim-lipped. "Stop using Jessie's expressions. Take my word for it, they don't go down that well in Vesey."

Mom dropped me off, as often was the case when she was put off.

I went swimming with Ingrid and a classmate, Judy, who was an excellent swimmer. I needed to use all my strength to beat Judy at lengths.

The Vesey Review was on the kitchen counter when I got back. That meant Dad was home. It was dated Monday, June 10, and all the front page stories, except the long-range weather report, were about the upcoming Williams' trial. "Williams' sons to testify for the state," or "Defense attorney Baxter Lambertolios publicly decries the prosecution: Charges unwarranted and unfounded, he says," or "Possible explanations of Kelly Williams' four hour time delay: Is there a mysterious friend involved?" And so forth.

Dad was ironing his Sally Anne uniform. This meant he was going to band that night. When I was younger, I quite often accompanied him, but it had grown boring for me. I came in and kissed him on the cheek.

"I have tomorrow off," he said in his soft, kind voice. "Do you want to go horseback riding?" I nodded enthusiastically.

That night, I walked with Ingrid to the new Ruckert mansion. Grandma and Grandpa took us to Dairy Queen in Hibbing by way of bringing us home. The next day, Dad and I were up early, and visited his friends' farm just miles out of Vesey.

The horse I rode, Dorsey, was a small, almost golden-brown quarter-horse with white hoofs. His back was short and straight, and his shoulders were muscular. He had a long neck with a beautiful mane. His eyes were alert and always friendly toward me. I whispered in his ears and seldom drove him hard, unless I had to keep up with Dad. Dad and I rode the whole morning, and then went to Wendy's for supper with Ingrid. I spent several hours afterwards talking to Jessie on the phone. Diane was there, and I was a little jealous. Even though I'd promised myself to stay in Vesey the whole week until Saturday, I asked Jessie if I could come up the next day.

"I knew you couldn't stand a whole week there with nothing to do," she said triumphantly. "Pack a suitcase and hop on the bus. Just use your card." That was something Mom and Dad knew nothing about: Jessie had given me an American Express card. "Take some books, unless you want to come to work with me."

"I think I won't come to work until Thursday. Is that okay?"

"Suit yourself, my little kettle of fish."

The next morning, when I was packed, I phoned Mom at work and told her I was heading to Duluth. I could tell that she was disappointed, but she tried to hide it. Ingrid was still at school, and I left Dad a short note. I picked up a Greyhound in Vesey at the Samuel Story's Variety and Pump, heading on 169 to 53 South through Cotton to Duluth. It was a bright, sunny day, and I sat quietly watching the world pass or reading a book. I had originally borrowed the book from Jessie's condo library; it was Walden Two by B. F. Skinner.

Near the end, I came across a quote that Jessie had highlighted in yellow. "The triumph of democracy doesn't mean it's the best government. It was merely the better in a contest with a conspicuously bad one... it's based on a scientifically invalid conception of man. It fails to take into account... that in the long-run, man is determined by the state. A laissez-faire philosophy which trusts to inherent goodness... of man is incompatible with the observed fact that men are made good or bad... by the environment in which they grow."

Beside it, Jessie had scribbled, "A behaviorist-technocrat with delusions of totalitarianism."

Even though I didn't fully understand it, the response was so Jessie that I laughed.

I kept on reading, and finished the book on the bus. The station was quiet. My suitcase had wheels; I walked without assistance toward the taxi stand at Lakewood and Harbor, pulling it behind me.

Two teenaged boys stepped up, one on each side of me. Both were wearing ski-masks. I had just passed Good Morning Donuts, and they pulled me roughly by the arms a few feet away into the shadows of the alleyway. I began to scream for help.

"You tell your dyke grandmother," one of them said as he grabbed me by the throat, choking me and muffling my screams, "that if she doesn't stop talking about what she doesn't know in the first place, then next time her granddaughter won't be as fortunate as she is today. The unborn have rights too!"

They released me. I threw Walden Two at them as they ran away. I hit one of them in the back of the head.

"The heck with you," I shouted. "You're real brave men, attacking a fourteen-year-old girl!"

The one I hit with the book stopped, picked it up, and continued on. I rolled my suitcase back into the sunlight and breathed what certainly seemed like the less-than-free air of Duluth. All at once, my fear welled up. I rushed to the taxi stand in tears, using all my self-control not to stop and phone Dad, and took a cab to the Basle Building. Tears had been streaming down my face since the attack, and I felt everyone staring at me.

When I came into Jessie's inner office, I checked to see if she was alone, but she had several people with her. They weren't employees, or at least none that I'd ever seen. They were men in expensive business suits. Then I recalled that they were from the outside auditing company that Jessie had asked for estimates. Diane must have heard or seen something. She rushed into the inner office without knocking.

"What's wrong, dear?" she asked me.

"I was attacked!"

"By whom?"

"By the teenaged boys who egged us last weekend."

She hurried into the outer office. I could see her whispering in Jessie's ear, then Jessie rose, her face turning pale as she reached her full height. She rushed out of her office and knelt in front of me.

"What happened?"

I told her the story, and her cheeks flushed with anger. I knew Jessie well, and could tell that she was fuming mad.

"This will never happen again," she promised, holding my hands tightly. "By next weekend, I'll have complete security for your trips here–if your parents ever let you come back."

I looked up, alarmed. "It's best that they don't know."

"We can't do that," Jessie whispered. "I don't think Cathy would ever forgive me if she found out."

"She would never find out."

Jessie nodded. "We'll decide on that later. But we will increase security at the office and the house. You'll be safe. Don't fear on that account. Di, cancel the rest of our appointments for today. Tell Jason we accept MacArthur-Johnston's last offer.

"Okay, Nat. I need a few minutes to wrap things up here, and then we'll go home. You're trembling. I want you to drink a glass of wine. It will help settle your nerves. I'm going to work on a special permit for you to have your driver's license this year. After October, when you turn fifteen, you'll be all set. I'll buy you whatever you'd like to drive. That's only three months away, anyway."

Diane poured me some cold white wine over ice in a crystal tumbler. Jessie paced back and forth in front of me for another minute, and I drank the wine like medicine. "Those gangsters," she said at length, still angry, "I'll get them for this!" Then Jessie and Diane left, and I saw them huddling together. Jessie was still furious.

That same night, an ex-police officer from Chicago, Myles Macklin, who ran The National Alarm Systems Association (NASA of Duluth), came over to the condo after supper. He was a tall, rake-thin man with short gray hair and a wonderful smile. After a tour of the building and the suite, he left with Diane for the Basle Building. They returned about an hour later with another ex-police officer from Detroit, Detective Denis Kaze of Duluth Investigation Services. He was a stout, muscular man, younger than Myles–maybe only thirty–with hard gray eyes and a trim beard. I told him the story of the attack, and Diane told him about the eggings. He seemed formidable to me and I could tell that Jessie liked him.

"We need to know whether you have any sympathy with the anti-abortion cause," she asked him.

"I'm a Christian," he said at once, "but I think a woman should have the right to choose."

"Can you find out who made these attacks?"

He nodded. "DIS makes no guarantees. You pay a small retainer to me, and if I'm successful you pay the rest. If not, you pay only DIS's expenses."

Jessie shook his hand and he promised to start his investigation the next morning. Myles promised to come back with his men the next morning as well, and said they would put in thick stainless-steel deadbolts at the windows and doors, including a retractable pull-down bar for the double glass balcony door, even though we were six floors up.

"Hitting them with Skinner was a mistake," Jessie kidded me when they had left. "He's such a lightweight. Too bad you didn't have a copy of the Bible."

I laughed, but I really didn't think it was funny.

Mom phoned that night and asked about my trip. I told her it went okay and asked to speak to Dad, mentioning to him that I'd been thinking of him all day.

"Be careful, Pumpkin," he cautioned me, "Duluth's no Vesey."

I stayed in the condo the next day. Good to their word, NASA of Duluth installed the security devices first thing in the morning, and then moved on to the Basle Building.

On Thursday I worked with Diane in the office, and on Friday flew in a Lear-jet with Jessie to New York City, landing at Teterboro. It was my third such trip. Jessie referred to the research facility off Highway 80 in Hackensack as BRITTANY, an acronym for Basle & Ruckerts in the Tetroboro Area, New York. When I first heard it I thought it was clever, but after a while it was just a name.

A young man, maybe Diane's age, ran BRITTANY; Nazer Brown. He had a nice manner about him, and he handled Jessie well. Being an employee of Jessie was tough. Many times she went on a tirade; you couldn't take it personally. I'd witnessed it, and I'd felt sorry for her employees. But I never saw her get frustrated with Nazer. I thought about marrying him, but Diane told me that he was in love with a beautiful blonde woman his age, Ruth Gregly. That was a real problem I could see ahead for me: the good ones were scooped up really fast.

Jessie and Diane had the whole weekend free–whether that was on my account or not I didn't really know for sure. They even drove me home on Sunday, but after a short visit with Dad–Mom was out with a friend–they kissed me goodbye and left. Jessie had said to Diane, although I wouldn't find this out until years later, that I was lucky to be alive.

On Monday, I sat at the front entrance to the Vesey Woolworth Department Store, just inside the mall, reading Jean Paul Sartre's Being and Nothingness. I'd chosen it from the school library because it was the largest philosophy book that they carried. I was waiting for Dad to have his hair cut. He was fourth or fifth in line– I could see him from where I sat. He was involved in a lively discussion with the barber and several younger men, two of them also from the Sally Anne; I would find out much later that Dad had an inspirational effect on the young men in Vesey. Dad and I were going to go horseback riding again, after lunch.

"It's by means of knowing what it isn't," I read to myself, "that consciousness makes known to itself what it is."

I saw John Williams coming out of the store where he worked. I'd intended to say hello to him, but he was arguing with a customer who'd just left the store and who I'd never seen before. They were partly out of earshot, but I could make out that John had caught him shoplifting or some such thing, and was pleading with him to come back in.

Even from a distance, John's timidity was discernable. He continually apologized, and was self-consciously embarrassed by the whole incident. Ironically, at least to my mind, the shoplifter was about Stacy Williams' age, and showed no shame. Another employee joined them and took the customer firmly by the arm, walking him back into the store without further resistance. Officer Ellis, Uncle Gordon's assistant, soon came by.

"Nat," he called with a wink and a wave as he passed me.

I read a few more lines. "Consciousness is a being, the nature of which is to be conscious of the nothingness of its being."

John came over and sat on the same bench, obviously upset.

"Hi," I said excitedly. "I saw you catch that shoplifter."

He looked over as though trying to place me. I could see in his eyes that he had dismissed me as a potential girlfriend–I was too young–but he spoke to me anyway.

"No," he said. "He ditched his stash. He had nothing on him when we searched him, even though I saw him stuff a metal bit-kit and flashlight down his shirt. Now I'm the one in trouble."

I wasn't aware of the subtleties of the law, but before I had the chance to ask, he changed the subject. "Your dad's Christian Ruckert, right?" I nodded. "What are you reading?" I held up the book. "Heady stuff," he whispered. "How old are you?"

"Sixteen," I lied.

He reached over, giving a little laugh and gently patting my head. "Do you know who I am?" I nodded. "I know your dad," he continued. "You're not sixteen, and besides, what would Jessie Basle do if she knew you were interested in the son of a murderer?"

I turned red, shocked that he knew of such things, or would even say something like that. Before I could try to redeem myself in his eyes, he spoke again.

"Jostein Gaarder has written a novel about the history of philosophy, Sophie's World. It's a much better place to start than that one. That's not a beginner's book, I can assure you." I wrote down the title and promised that I would read it. "I've just finished reading Madame Bovary by Flaubert," he continued. "The story depressed me far more than I could have ever imagined it would. Other assignments in the course flew by in a haze of written reports or the classroom's babble, but this one left me feeling awful. I hated it from the first page to the last. The dishonesty between the husband and wife, the deceit in matters of the heart, the graphic suicide–it brings back this nightmare Paul and I are going through."

I couldn't think of a word to say, especially since I had never heard of the book.

"A week after they found Mom's body," he continued, "Paul told me to meet him at the back of the Guildhall Tavern on Friday evening, at seven o'clock sharp. 'Come alone,' he told me. I was there first. It was almost empty."

I could hardly believe my ears, or my luck. He was going to let me into his world.

"The walls of the bar are filled with artifacts of 1960s pop culture," he continued. "Many relate to Bob Dylan, who, if you don't know, was raised in Hibbing. You know who Bob Dylan is?"

I nodded. I was pretty sure that he was Frank Sinatra's son. Dad likes Frank Sinatra and I listened to "Fly Me to the Moon" all the time.

"They played this song at a hundred decibels," he continued. "Young guys; construction workers. They were drinking beer, smoking, taking the Lord's name in vain, and shouting, 'Got no love, no love you'd call real. Got nobody waiting at home. Runnin' with the devil.' That was the chorus of the song. It struck me so negatively. I'll never forget it. Do you know the song?"

I shook my head.

"Van Halen," he said. "Ever heard of them?"

I shook my head again.

"No matter," he continued. "They're all the rage. At the bar, the boys whooped it up, and from where I sat, at an elevated booth at the back of the tavern, I could see the front door. Some of them mooned the bartender, a woman who must have thought they were cute or something. She was laughing hysterically. Do you know what mooning is?"

I nodded. I was pretty sure it had something to do with running with the devil.

"I think she was a friend of theirs," he continued. "The place struck me as bleak, but Paul likes a joint like that–and besides, these days almost everything strikes me as gloomy anyway. I had never been there on a Friday night; I usually work. When Paul arrived, I waved him over and he insisted I buy some beer. 'We'll need it,' I remember him saying. I'm legal and he isn't, as he's over a year younger than I am. I didn't really want to help a minor get alcohol, even if it was my brother, who you can trust with a drink–but his face said it all. I reluctantly ordered two drafts without further ado. Then I asked him what was with all the secrecy."

John patted his short brown hair down. I noticed that he'd done that several times already. I wanted to reach over and kiss him. It was true what they said about him: he was timid in his manners, and was super polite, but there was something cuddly about him.

"My brother asked me if I knew what they were saying about Mom," he said, continuing with his story. "I'd heard the rumors, but I wanted to hear what he had to say. He's naïve, but that night he kept rubbing his eyes to hide his emotions. I know him pretty well. I try to remember that we are both tired, angry, grieving, and confused; I'm prepared to watch my words. I'm a cautious guy, everyone can see that, but Paul's not–he's spontaneous. 'They say it wasn't an accident,' he said in this real low voice, so that only I could hear it.

"Neither of us spoke for an entire minute. I tried to control my reaction to this, but I noticed my hands were trembling. The group of young construction workers had left the bar, and it was much quieter suddenly. He told me he'd heard that her death was under investigation by the coroner's office as a possible homicide."

John caught my eyes. "What are the chances of your mom investigating my dad for murder?" he went on. "And here we are talking about it. I hear you were there at the scene, that night."

I nodded. "It was horrible," I said. I was lying. Really, it hadn't grossed me out for even a second.

"Paul went on to tell me that they were saying someone forced Mom's car off Ridgeway Road at the gorge. I asked him who he had heard that from, then he tells me it was Maggie Trilby who told him, but that everybody has heard about it. Paul's cheeks were burning. My face was flushed as well. I could feel my anger growing. But he kept on with it, saying that Dad was a suspect. I hadn't heard that outright and I was furious at him for saying it out loud, even though I had wondered about it myself from the beginning. Then he tells me I will need another beer. Seeing his expression–he had gone completely pale–I rose without objection and got two more from the bar. When I got back, Paul told me that the night before Mom left Ely, she had phoned him."

An expression of surprise escaped my lips and I looked over at him, putting my hand in front of my mouth.

"That was a complete shock to me too," John said, " and by now I was seeing red. I asked why he hadn't said anything when we were searching for her. He said he told Dad, and that Dad told him to keep it to himself. I was amazed at how those words sounded. How badly they seemed to incriminate our father. Dad promised Paul he would talk to the police about it, Paul said. Then he went on to tell me that Mom had told him that she was heading to Payne to surprise Dad at the Jefferson Motel. When Paul told Dad about this, Dad explained that on that night, the night of Mom's death, he had gone straight over to Duluth without letting Mom know. He swore that he hadn't seen her at all.

"He also told Paul that he was concerned that there might be rumors about Mom running away with another man, or something, if we went to the police with the story that Mom was meeting him on a whim in a motel. I can't recollect what Paul said, word for word, but Dad convinced him that police often think that way in missing-person cases, and it would be enough for them to call off the search if they thought she'd acted on some emotional impulse. Dad insisted that Paul keep it to himself, even from me. He told Paul nothing had changed, that he would tell the police that he had remembered that Mom had gone home by way of Payne once or twice. I asked Paul if he thought Dad was telling the truth. I was nearly beside myself. Paul told me he was suspicious. He said outright that he wondered if Dad had murdered our mother. I think I frowned and nodded at the same time. I was speechless."

I wanted so badly to reach over and squeeze John's hand, but I wasn't brave enough. I looked over and noticed that Dad was in the barber's chair now.

"I think I broke down for a minute," John went on. "At the tavern, there's a half-dozen billiard tables at the back that were in use, and a cloud of smoke hung over the bar. I hadn't even noticed the place getting busy. I saw that the strippers were getting ready to start their routines. I wanted to leave. I hate that sort of thing; it's repulsive. It's like my mom always said: their goodness left them at the same time as their shame. I heard from a classmate who used their massage services that it costs as little as forty dollars. I pity them, though. And I pity their customers. I wonder why the town ever allows it. Even common decency seems to be sacrificed to business. Prostitution in Vesey; who would have imagined it, even a few years ago?"

I nodded, even though Jessie had said that outlawing prostitution was one of the stupidest things in American jurisprudence, right up there with prohibition.

"Never mind about those women," John said. "Back to the story. Paul whispered to me that we both knew Dad cheated on Mom. I'd told Paul the same thing myself, many times. Paul said Dad might not have gone to the police. I said there was no point in repeating any of what Paul had told me unless we were sure. 'One thing would decide it,' he said. I remember those exact words, and I guessed at once what he meant–we could check at the Jefferson Motel to see if he was there that night. I refused to do it. Paul pushed his beer away and got up. 'Fine,' he said. He looked sad and exhausted when he left."

John looked at me, and then over at the barber shop. "Your dad's almost done," he said.

I looked over, too. I felt like rushing John on with his story so that he would finish, but I didn't want this moment to end.

"After Paul left the bar," he continued, "I checked the time. It wasn't too late to make it to Payne and back. I wondered why Mom and Dad had stayed together after all this time. But she had hoped to change him, that's why. They fought with each other nearly every day; I think they hated each other. I left the bar debating whether I should go home or to Payne. I started out in my old beat-up Pinto without even knowing where I was going. Soon, I headed on a county side-road for the highway route to Payne. Dad always stopped over in Payne on his way to Duluth, and when I was no more than your age, I knew why. I have understood it for a long time."

"Why?" I stupidly asked.

He smiled and looked over. "You do know what sex is?"

I reddened and he gave a light laugh.

"To be truthful," he continued, "I never understood why Mom loved him. She was wise and strong. He couldn't meet her standards by any means, and therein lay the secret behind his numerous affairs. The drive to the Jefferson Motel took me under an hour. I went straight to reception. That was a transcendental moment in my life. The walls were painted light blue, and they were hung with paisley prints of the former Presidents of the United States. A thin old guy manned the desk–a nice man–and asked if he could help me. He was friendly, and I told him I was looking for my father. He said he knew him but that he wasn't here tonight. He asked me if it was an emergency. I shook my head and made as though to leave, then I turned back and asked him if he'd mind telling me the last time my dad stayed over. At first he told me that information isn't given out, then he asked for identification. I showed him my license and my college photo-card, and flicked through the pictures in my wallet until I found some recent ones of the family. I showed him a picture of Dad and me, and another picture of Paul and Mom. Then he said he'd seen my mother before, but not with Dad. I thought that was the weirdest thing."

"That was pretty insensitive of him," I said, trying to recover a bit of my maturity lost because of my last stupid question.

"It's funny you say that. It was as though the old guy realized what he had said. He got flustered and turned red, embarrassed. So he relented and decided to check for me, and he asked me to keep it to myself. He looked through the ledgers for a few minutes until he found the date, and turned the ledger for me to see: Tuesday, May 21. I stared down at Dad's signature. That's when I knew."

The man John had accused of shoplifting came over to us where we sat. He spat disdainfully in our direction, and held up a hundred dollars in twenties. He had hollow angry eyes and a sense of drama about him, as though he was in a play.

"See what I got from your boss, you a-hole?" he shouted. "I hope they take it out of your pay."

After the shoplifter left, John rose and looked at me anew, as though still puzzled. "I have figured it out," he said. "I see why they called you Jessie's girl. Don't repeat a word I've said–that is, if you want any more installments."

I nodded eagerly.

"As you can see," he added, "things aren't going that well lately. See you. I've gotta run.'

I watched him walk away. "I didn't know you knew John Williams," Dad said, coming up behind me and taking my hand. I told him about the shoplifting incident on the way to the farm, but not about the other part of the story.

When I rode Dorsey that afternoon, it was as though I was on a cloud. We flew as one over the trails. I knew that this was how it felt to make love, and I whispered about it in Dorsey's ears. I wished I was naked, and riding with Dorsey all alone through the woods.

I didn't see John again until July 17, and every day I thought about him. Jessie noticed that I was distracted, but didn't ask about it; not that I would have dared to tell her. It was bad enough that John was the son of a supposed murderer, but I was pretty sure he was a devout Christian just like Dad,–and in Jessie's eyes, that made it even worse.

Chapter Three

The first day of the trial was Monday, July 15, but I couldn't make it. I had just started to work at noon-hour as a lifeguard, and it was a warm, sunny afternoon. The Kiwanis St. Louis Public Pool was outside, and it got really busy with summer-camp and daycare kids. At one point, we had over fifty children between four and seven years of age in the pool. It was nerve-racking keeping my eyes on them all, and I got a sore voice from repeating things so often: "No jumping!" "No diving!" "No running!" "Where's your swimming buddy?," and "Don't push!" I stayed out of the direct sun as much as possible, and used a ton of suntan lotion. My skin burnt in the moonlight, so in the sun, I had to be on constant guard.

Later in the evening, Mom told me that the trial started with the judge's presentation to the jury of the rules in a murder case. Then both the prosecution and the defense presented their opening statements. They'd each been given an hour by the judge, and both of them used the full time allotted.

"That's not giving them much time," Mom said. "That was all done in one day. It'll be a speedy trial."

On Wednesday it rained and the pool didn't open, so I was able to accompany Mom to court.

When John Williams arrived, I almost stood and waved. He sat behind the prosecution's table. That was telling, I thought. It couldn't be a coincidence. Paul soon joined him there. They were both wearing suits; I thought John look particularly tall and handsome in his trim-tailored dark blue suit with cuffs and flared lapels.

The crowd on the second floor courtroom was mostly middle-aged women, dressed as though for Sunday morning church services. I could smell lavender and perfume. They had husbands out working, and children in summer-camp or out roaming the streets of Vesey. I knew that they kept little snacks in their purses like grandma Ruckert, and did needlework in the evenings. They were wonderful women, even if Jessie was right about their conformist mentality.

From the outside, the sound of thrushes came in through the open windows with a damp morning breeze that ruffled the vertical blinds. Stacy Williams came into the courtroom.

"The very Prince of Darkness possesses his soul," Mom whispered in my ear, mimicking an expression that Jessie often used about men she didn't like. I laughed silently.

For a moment, I studied the jury as they were escorted in by Sergeant Darwin MacLean. I was surprised that I didn't recognize one single face; they must have gone out of St. Louis County to select them. I whispered my observation to Mom.

"Clever kid," she mouthed.

The judge made his entrance and we rose. To my utter surprise, the first witness called that day, a prosecution witness–Mom had told me there were lots of them–was Paul Williams. Seeing his confidence as he took the stand and swore oath, I was reminded what an attractive teenager he was. His eyes were bright, and his hair was vibrant. Long ago, I'd fallen for him, and all the girls in Vesey were crazy about him. Mom had once said that he would break a lot of hearts.

"Why?" I had asked her at the time.

"Women are wired to think that his physical traits stand for strength, fertility, merriment, and fulfillment. So he'll have his pick and fly from bed to bed."

Liz Heinrich, the St. Louis County head prosecutor, rose from the prosecutor's table. She was wearing a gray business suit, which looked as though it was too big for her. Maybe this was done on purpose to hide her stern-looking appearance. Her gray hair was in a wavy style, and pushed back with a white carnation on the side. The flower was so queer as to defy explanation, and especially from someone supposedly so conservative– "an icon" as Mom had said. She limped slightly and then leaned on her table as though she couldn't make it to the bench.

"Paul, you're seventeen years old, is that correct?" He nodded. "You must say so aloud, dear."

He shrugged. "Yes."

His voice was strong and clear. I saw that, although he didn't smile, his eyes were so alive that he seemed to be smiling.

"On Friday, May 31, you and older brother John met to discuss some issues. Could you tell the court about that meeting?"

"The day Mom went missing," he said, "she had phoned me. John didn't know this. I'd vowed to Dad not to say anything." He proceeded to tell the story that I had already heard from his brother.

"How are you feeling now?" Liz asked when he finished.

"I feel that my dad deserves his day in court. But I'm not certain that he did anything wrong. Perhaps it was an accident that killed Mom. I hope so."

Liz nodded to Baxter Lambertolios, the defense attorney. He rose and nodded to the judge, then came around the table and placed his hand on Stacy's shoulder.

Baxter stood exceedingly tall– six-and-a-half feet– and was young, maybe no more than twenty-five years of age. His youth and height made him look thinner than he was. Jet-black hair shot up from the top of his head, and was propped up with mousse. This added to the effect of his height and youth, and also made him look dangerous. I had never met him. He was from Hibbing. I imagined that when he was in high school, he looked like a geek, and had probably endured plenty of ridiculing like I had. When I had complained of the teasing myself to Jessie, she said, "Chin up, my little kettle of fish. It builds fiber." Then she added in a songlike voice,

"It's no bliss,

being a nonconformist."

Baxter looked all right– I mean, not too far from normal– except for his wild eyes, but here's the thing about him that struck me as so unusual: he radiated goodness, and it was no act. I could tell this about people. I had always been able to pick out honest people, even as a child. Stacy Williams, on the other hand, looked more lost every time I saw him. His eyes were glossy and resentful– well, not exactly resentful. They were more semitransparent, like those of an exposed criminal– yet not in an exciting way or anything like that, but in a dull, even bland, manner.

"Your dad wants you to know that he understands your doubts," Baxter said. "He wants you to know that he forgives you for them. He wants you to know another thing–"

"Your Honor, does Mr. Lambertolios have a question?" Liz said, rising.

Judge Ian Morrison gave Liz a crotchety look, shifting his weight uncomfortably. His kind eyes and white bushy hair and eyebrows still reminded me of Santa Claus. "He didn't interrupt you," he said.

"I asked questions," Liz said.

"Baxter, ask a question," the judge said.

"Paul, do you love your father?" Baxter asked at once.

"Yes," Paul said.

"He wants you and John to know that he loves you too. If I told you that your dad went straight off to Duluth the night in question, would you have any doubts?"

"He was signed in at The Jefferson Motel."

"Your dad wants you to know that he stopped at The Jefferson Motel to meet a young working girl–"

"Your Honor," Liz said, rising. "We don't believe this yarn for a minute, but at least have Mr. Lambertolios tell it like it is. Candy Cosmic isn't a working girl; she's a convicted prostitute from Hibbing who can't confirm the defense's account of the events that evening."

Baxter returned to his table and sat down. A silence followed for a minute, and Judge Morrison scratched his head and scribbled in his notebook. He then indicated for Liz to approach the bench. Whatever he said went unheard by the rest of the courtroom, but by the look on Liz's face, it wasn't beneficial to the prosecution.

"Continue, Baxter," Judge Morrison said at length.

"Your dad has regular contact with Candy. He isn't happy about you knowing that. That evening, when she didn't arrive at the appointed time, he left for Duluth– she's notably unreliable. His flight to Minneapolis left at six o'clock in the morning, and he wanted a room near the airport. It may be distasteful, but it's not an unbelievable set of events. We've already shown the nature of the meetings over the next few days in Minneapolis and Chicago, which were some of the most important meetings of your dad's career. My question is, do you love your father enough to give him the benefit of the doubt?"

"Yes," Paul said sincerely.

After Paul testified, I left to run errands. The next day was bright and beautiful, and I wasn't able to go to the courtroom because of work. The pool was busy and I was in the sun for nearly the whole morning and afternoon, but I did pull a drowning three-year-old girl out of the water and gave her mouth to mouth. Everyone congratulated me. I phone Jessie on Thursday night to tell her.

"You were born to do great things," she said.

That left me breathless. Jessie and Diane spent the weekend in New York City, and for seven straight sunny days I worked without a break. I applied SPF thirty suntan lotion in handfuls, and soon had a respectable tan. I didn't tan well–I usually burned well–so I was proud of it. The only trouble being a redhead was that with the sun came freckles. My hair was not bright red, though–it was more a sandy-brown sort of red– and my freckles weren't too noticeable with a tan. After my second paycheck, I bought a walkman and two tapes by Joni Mitchell, Hejira and Mingus, both of which were tributes to jazz bassist, Charlie Mingus.

Without any warning, Mom bought me training bras and sanitary napkins. My breasts had started to grow. As though Mom's purchase had magically transformed me, my first period began days later: first I started to feel bloated, and my breasts itched so that I could barely stand to take a shower. I felt like I was sick. The next day, I began to bleed. I told Mom about it and she hugged me.

"You're getting your period," she said. "I know Jessie told you all you ever didn't want to know about sex and wished you had never asked."

This wasn't true. I was glad I'd asked Jessie, but I still laughed. It was funny because of David Reuben's famous book, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex but Were Afraid to Ask.

"You have the facts," she continued. "I won't go there, but don't get pregnant. Unprotected sex is unacceptable in this household."

She sang a jingle, but unlike Jessie, her voice wasn't hard on the ears.

"If you want sex with Joe Blow

Or his friend, No Dough,

Make sure they cover their Mojo."

I laughed again. "If you have painful periods," she continued, "I'll put you on the birth-control pill. Not for this first one, mind you, but the pill helps with menstrual pain. Until that time, stay away from the boys."

I laughed for a third time, but my period was no joke. I had headaches, cramps, irritability, and crying spells. I phoned Jessie for sympathy, forgetting that this was always a mistake. With respect to what she considered 'pedestrian pain,' as she called it, she showed no weakness.

"You're complaining about the knocks and bumps of life," she said in response. "We've already been through this a thousand times. It's details. Look at it this way, you'll develop nice hips and breasts. That's just about all you'll need to get a man– certainly brains won't attract them, since they don't have any themselves when it comes to sex." I laughed. "That's it, my little kettle of fish," she added. " Chin up."

To be honest, this was no comfort and I went back to mom. I was annoyed with the hole thing and a bit distressed. When she hugged me, I almost cried but after being in her arms a minute, I felt much better.

Wednesday, July 24 opened with a thunderstorm. Because there was no work for me, I was able to go to court with Mom, who was expected to take the stand. She had her hair pulled loosely behind her ears, wore little makeup, and dressed in a new gray suit-skirt. The room hardly had an empty seat. Again I noticed that there was far more women than men, and a lot of the men there were retired. Like before, first the jury came in, and then the case resumed.

"Let's get going," Judge Morrison said dryly at length, after everything had been brought to order. The clerk called out Mom's name.

"Is it Dr. Ruckert or Dr. Basle?" Baxter asked, rising out of his seat. "In places, your name is signed hyphenated, in others it's Ruckert, in others Basle–it's as though you were avoiding taking any responsibility for your choices. I want to go over the alleged crime scene with you. You brought your daughter there that night?"

"Her name is Natalie Ruckert," Mom answered fiercely.

I sat up on the edge of my seat, and realized that there might be open animosities between them.

"But you brought her?"

"I would answer your question if I knew what you were talking about. Have you ever been to a crime scene?"

"I'll ask the questions. It's your job as an employee of the state to answer them. Your adolescent daughter was allowed to see her eighth grade teacher in the horrible condition which we have allowed the jury to see only after a long debate in court?"

"Am I on trial here? If I am, I want legal representation–and I can assure you, it won't be you."

Light laughter followed, and even Baxter seemed to smile.

"The night that you came with Chief Gordon Spade to the accident scene: remember, your daughter was there. You didn't let Stacy, his sons, or Kelly's mother down into the ravine, but your adolescent daughter roamed freely."

"She stood calmly in one spot, watching, which she's done hundreds of times at accidents, fires, drownings, and other scenes."

"As a mother, why would you do such a thing?"

"To get her inured to such sights. I want her to go into medicine. She's here today; swear her in and ask her yourself. You'll see that such sights don't take any emotional toll on her."

"Was Natalie within earshot at the scene?"

"I believe so."

"You openly conjectured from certain facts at the scene that my client forced his wife off Ridgeway Road into the gorge?"

"Is that a question?"

"Indeed, it isn't. You think it is appropriate to state these kinds of hypotheses in front of your young daughter? Meanwhile, she's going to Vesey Secondary High School the following Monday, downtown with her friends, or whatever she does?"

"I don't recall any hypothesis. That is all in your mind."

"Constable Sam Ellis testified that Gordon Spade said, 'She thinks Kelly was murdered.'"

"As Sam said, he remained in the bluff only for a few moments, and didn't hear our complete conversation."

"In regards to the seminal fluid found in Kelly William's body and linked by tests to Stacy Williams, are you in agreement with Doctor Stephen White about the time parameters? I mean, in a general way."

Mom's eyes shone with anger, and then, looking over at me, she lowered her gaze. She had told me about this. Doctor White was one of her best men and so she couldn't publicly refute him, but the results of the tests hadn't been narrow enough to prove anything about Stacy's guilt.

"Essentially," she said.

"The high alcohol levels in the blood of Kelly Williams, any dispute with those?"

She didn't answer at once. Baxter stepped closer and lowered his voice as though he were being sympathetic. "Shall I have the clerk re-read the question?"

"The levels you quoted were correct."

"Just one more line of questioning, doctor. You've known Stacy Williams for some time?"

"No."

"You weren't on agreeable terms?"

"I didn't know Mr. Williams."

He looked up at the bench. "Your Honor, at this point I will introduce a motion to dismiss."

The judge reached over and opened a file to his right. "Doctor Ruckert, you may step away." Next he excused the jury, and when they were gone, said, "Okay, let's hear it."

Baxter looked up. "Your Honor, I need the courtroom cleared as well."

"Your Honor," Liz said, rising, "he is grandstanding."

"Is that a legal term?" Judge Morrison asked.

I laughed. Mom had taken her seat beside me. I could tell that she was still angry. Uncle Gordon sat behind the prosecution table; we were several seats back. Mom had told me earlier that morning that the defense hadn't yet made one motion nor a single objection in the whole trial. I could see that Baxter had pinned a lot of hope on this one move.

"I'll have the bailiff clear the courtroom, please," the judge said. "Baxter deserves that much. Wouldn't you agree that you've had a walk in the park, Liz?"

She shook her head in disagreement, but said nothing.

"If I get to stay," Mom whispered in my ear, "I'll give you the details when I get home."

I left. Well before supper, while flipping channels during commercials of a re-run of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, I heard on the news that the murder case against Stacy Williams had been dismissed by Judge Anderson.

I was afraid that Mom might arrive home drunk. I knew that she would be disappointed; she often called it "alcohol anger management therapy." One time, arguing against this, I mentioned that Dad didn't drink and he never lost his temper.

"You've got it mixed up," she retorted. "He doesn't get angry, and that's why he doesn't drink." She said it as a joke, but it was pure Jessie-logic–not that I would have ever pointed that out. Mom never liked to be compared to Jessie.

"Get dressed," she said when she arrived home. "We're going out."

"I don't want to," Ingrid said.

"Fine," Mom said with an acid voice. "I'll drop you off at a babysitter's."

"Where are we going?" Ingrid asked.

"Anywhere you want, as long as it serves alcohol."

This puzzled Ingrid. She couldn't think of a place where kids' fast food and bars came together.

"Virginia Rotisserie," I whispered in her ear.

She shouted,

"Chicken on a spit,

It's a hit!"

We left laughing to get dressed. "How will you get home after you've started drinking?" I asked when we were set. "Phone Dad?"

"Excellent idea. Are we ready?"

Mom drove what Grandpa Ruckert called a jalopy, a 1968 used Volvo station wagon. There wasn't really much in Vesey at the time in the way of fast food, so we drove Highway 169 in the jalopy to Virginia.

"What happened at the trial?" I asked after we ordered. Mom had started her first drink, a Southern Comfort and Seven-Up.

"First-rate question," she said. "I don't know, exactly. After everyone was cleared out, Baxter said something like, 'The state has presented all the hard evidence it has.' He went on to say that they would give us our side of The Jefferson Motel story, but that Stacy's side of it made perfect sense as well. He insisted that Stacy didn't stay there that night, but instead, after he had changed his mind and the call-girl didn't show and so forth, he left for Duluth and stayed at The Evening Star Motel. Baxter stated that they had offered proof of this. I thought to myself, 'What proof?' But what can you do? He went on to say that if Kelly arrived at The Jefferson–no one can confirm this–she probably didn't see his car and so she left. He pointed out that our side had only proved a sexual union between Kelly and Stacy. Then he got sarcastic and asked if it was still legal for a husband and wife to have sex. He pointed out that the time-brackets were too broad to say when exactly they had sex, and it was as his client maintained all along: that they had intercourse before he left on his trip. Then he charged that I had a pressing motivation to revenge myself against his client and that was why Stacy had been charged with murder–because of me."

I nearly swore out loud. Mom stopped and looked at me, nodding.

"Yes. 'A pressing motive,'" she repeated. "Wait and see how he ambushed me. He admitted that the state had partially proved that someone forced Kelly off the road, but insisted that there wasn't one shred of physical evidence tying either Stacy, or his car, to the scene. He said that the state had proved Stacy had brand new tires, purchased since the accident, then reminded the judge that the defense had showed Liz had bought new tires since the time of Kelly's death too, adding that she wasn't even supposed to be driving."

I laughed, but mom didn't even smile.

"I can't tell you how embarrassing that was for Liz," Mom said. "He went on about how many people have bought new tires, and how they were pretty certain none of them killed Kelly Williams, that it was a red herring and so forth, that there were no witnesses, no solid motivation, no large estate, no huge insurance claims, no recent marital problems, no abusive fights between husband and wife, and no history of family violence. He then pointed out that no one from The Jefferson Motel remembered seeing Stacy and Kelly together, and not just that night, but any night. He reminded the judge that there was only one waiter at Daniels Restaurant who thought he may have seen Stacy and Kelly together, perhaps on that night, but there were no credit card transactions and no particulars that the waiter could identify. Then Baxter said that we hadn't even completely ruled out accidental death; that Kelly had a reading of alcohol in her blood over the legal limit. After that, he dropped his bombshell. He suggested that Kelly rushed home, not because of some fabulous conspiracy out of my fertile imagination–that's what he said, that I had concocted it with the unwitting help of Kelly and Stacy's distraught sons–but rather for a secret romantic liaison."

Mom sighed, looking over at me. "It goes from bad to worse," she went on. "Next Baxter said that his hands were being tied in open court by his client, who, fearing for Kelly's reputation in Vesey, refused to let him bring up the whole affair.

"Liz nearly jumped out of her seat, I can tell you that. She was red hot. She asked Baxter if he was going to surprise the court. He turned to her and smiled. I saw that Judge Morrison was really getting curious. Baxter went on to tell him that the standard of disclosure was met; that their surprise witness went to our side first. Judge Morrison looked to Liz, who only shrugged in frustration, obviously disheartened. I think she knew what was coming. She was flipping through her briefcase files and said something like, 'It's a real can of worms.'

"Baxter then said that his motion to dismiss consisted of three things: our case was circumstantial; he had given proper contest on every valid point; and Kelly has a past which is relevant, but which his client won't allow to be introduced in open court. He added that Stacy had conceded to him if that the judge wished, he could rule to dismiss it in closed court, and that it could be brought out, all with one witness. Morrison allowed it without hesitation."

Mom paused to order another drink. "At that point," she continued at length, "Baxter turned away from the judge, and gave me a quick smile of victory. Can you imagine the gall? The surprise witness was Kent Vibert."

"I know him," I said, taken unawares.

"Baxter explained that Kent had an affair with Kelly Williams, and that he and Kent would show that the pair had planned a barbecue together for that evening. The propane tank, which exploded in her car, belonged to Kent. Liz pointed out that the time slot made no sense. He countered that they wouldn't contradict established facts, but only would show that what Kelly told her son about a meeting with Stacy just couldn't be true. I was thinking to myself as I sat there that Baxter had just conceded a motivation for Stacy to kill his wife: an adulterous affair. The judge immediately saw it as well. 'Perhaps I understand why you didn't pursue this path,' he said to Liz. He ordered Collin to go and get Kent Vibert. Sitting there, I could see that the judge thought we were headed for a hung jury."

"What's that?" Ingrid asked.

"Where the defendant is neither convicted nor acquitted," I said, "but may be tried again before a new jury if the government decides to seek a re-trial."

Our dinner was served, and Mom ordered a third drink.

"Collin returned with Kent Vibert, and when he walked into the courtroom, I saw that he was as I remembered him: an unassuming, balding man of about fifty years old or so. He is the same height and weight as Stacy Williams. He has always worn these ridiculous-looking bifocals, but there was no mistaking that he exuded the aura of a gentleman. He was dressed in a gray suit and red bow tie. He quickly sat in the witness seat, but in a manner that somehow showed deference to the court. I saw at once he was going to be fatal to our side, even if he never even spoke.

"He testified that he was the principal of Ruby Junction Elementary Public School. Can you imagine? A principal, no less. Moreover, I saw that he had been coached. Baxter got him to say that he's a widower of two years, and to explain how he met Kelly Williams. For some ten years, Kent and his late wife had known and socialized with Kelly and Stacy, but after his wife's death, he became distraught and lonely. They made 'a mistake,' he said, and after that he began to see Kelly alone once or twice a week or so. He admitted that, on the day in question, they were to have a barbecue at his place."

Mom looked up as her drink came. "That Baxter's a clever one," she whispered after the waiter had left. "He had the judge in his pocket by then. Every sort of personal opinion was coming out of Kent's mouth in response to Baxter's questions. Liz wasn't objecting. Kent even denied that he would have felt fearful of Kelly's husband had Stacy ever found out about their affair. Kent explained that he didn't go to the police right away because he thought Kelly might have felt confused, and left Vesey on a whim to get away from it all. She had expressed that she still loved her husband, but that she had fallen in love with him as well. He explained that after the accident, he became grief-stricken and didn't know what to do. He told how he had eventually gone to the police and talked to Uncle Gordon; he told your uncle everything. Furthermore, he testified that he recalled driving on Ridgeway Road with Kelly in her new red Malibu, and that she drove recklessly on that road because it gave her a thrill–'Those are her words,' he said."

I reached over and patted Mom's hand. She seemed to be getting depressed.

"Listen to this," she went on. "'Did Kelly ever tell you a story about Christian Ruckert being accosted by my client?' Baxter asked Kent at one point near the end. The judge looked over at me in anger when he heard that question."

"This is about Daddy?" Ingrid asked. Mom nodded. "He would never push anyone," Ingrid added.

"Kent went on to tell the court that Kelly had become embarrassed by Stacy's growing antagonism towards religious people. She told Kent that once, when the Salvation Army did a charity drive at the Cotecut Shelter for Women, your dad and the band were performing outside the Town Hall when, by chance, Stacy came along. He began asking Dad where the money went. Then Stacy began swearing, yelling that the money was being funneled to the Basle and Ruckert Evil Empire or something like that–he was drunk."

I laughed, but saw Mom didn't think it was funny. I covered my mouth.

"Kent said that Stacy and Christian got into an argument," Mom continued, "and that there was pushing and shoving when they tried to get Stacy to leave. When Judge Morrison heard that, he called a recess and asked to see Uncle Gordon and me in his chambers.'

"My goodness," I said. "Did they fire you?"

Mom took my hand. "It isn't so bad. Back in his chambers, he poured us all a coffee and then said something like, 'For years, we have avoided these kinds of embarrassments. That keeps guys like us from being turfed out of office.' The judge admitted that Stacy was probably guilty, and now we even had a motive–but that the question was not whether he was guilty, but rather, whether we were wasting everyone's 'hard-earned money' and 'precious time' in a futile effort. He went on to say that elected officials should know better than to try cases that can't be proven in court, to leave the fruitless exercises for Duluth, that the case should have never have gone this far. He looked at me, and in a condescending voice, told me that the state can't nail Stacy on hunches, no matter how good they are; that under appeal the case didn't have a chance, even if we got a conviction–which he wasn't going to take a chance on anyway. He said he would rule for dismissal, and that he didn't want any whispering behind his back; that Kelly drove drunk, had an affair with the principal of an elementary school who was an excellent defense witness, and that she liked playing chicken on Ridgeway Road. He said that I was probably right about Stacy, but there didn't seem to be any honor in what I had done."

"That must have made you mad," I said.

"Let me tell you," Mom continued. "I rose, telling him not to use that platitude. I told him that if Stacy ever had a confrontation with Dad, your father would have never dreamed of mentioning it to me. I told him as well that Stacy murdered his wife, and that although I didn't know it at first, by now I was certain of it. I slammed the door on my way out."

I was amazed at Mom's fearlessness. She had gotten it from Jessie.

"I want to go now," Ingrid said, having finished her meal.

Mom phoned Dad. "So Stacy will just walk away free?" I asked, when everything had been arranged and the meal was cleared away.

Mom raised her eyebrows and shrugged. "I think so."

"Can we stop talking about this now?" Ingrid asked. "I have been patient, and I don't want to hear anymore."

"Can you tell us about your day?" Mom asked.

"I skated with Linda Fratianne this afternoon. 'You're one of the greatest figure skaters in the whole world,' she said, after she saw my triple-lutz-salchow combo. She begged to coach me."

We laughed. "The world gold medalist begged to coach you?" Mom asked, pretending to be startled.

Ingrid nodded. "I told her, my mother would never allow it. She wants me to become a doctor and travel all around this great country of ours, inflicting pain on people just like she does."

We laughed again.

"What else?" Mom asked.

"A man phoned and asked if I would be interviewed by Sixty Minutes about my role in bringing about world peace. I told him I don't do interviews."

We would have continued in this vein–Ingrid has an amazing sense of humor–but Dad arrived and took us home.

Chapter Four

The next day, I was back under the bright sun, and the temperature reached 95 degrees Fahrenheit. I was going through a bottle of suntan lotion every other day. Ingrid and her friend Elena came to swim for the afternoon. Ingrid was blonde, but surprisingly, her skin turned dark brown under the sun. In a bikini, she looked a little flabby, but she swam like an eel.

The following day, the Vesey Review carried the headline, 'Stacy Williams is Free. Case Dismissed by Judge Ian Morrison. The State Won't Pursue a Re-trial.' After the dismissal, the paper had asked Paul and John for their remarks, but both had refrained. I thought that wise of them. The paper also carried a short interview of Stacy by Dave Zacroix.

That night, Mom was preparing a roast ham, broccoli-cauliflower shepherd's pie with chicken chunks, and a mixed-berry trifle for dessert. The kitchen wasn't large, but it had only two walls and gave the impression of being completely open. On one side facing the backyard, it fell out into a large eating area, and on the other side, toward the front of the house, there was a formal dining room.

I read the interview aloud to her: "Stacy Williams, senior salesperson in charge of Northwestern America for Technique Steel and Metal Company, spoke with me immediately after the trial. Stacy Williams was charged with murdering his wife, but just minutes ago, he was released after his trial ended in a dismissal.

Dave Zacroix: 'How are you feeling?'

Stacy Williams: 'Relieved, exonerated, and full of hope. The system works. I would like to thank the jury, the judge, and especially Baxter Lambertolios, my dedicated lawyer.'

DZ: 'What happened?'

SW: 'The coroner's office employs an officer who has a personal grudge against me.'

DZ: 'Would you elaborate, or name that person?'

SW: 'My wife's death wasn't a homicide. She died in a tragic accident. I don't think I should have been charged with murder just because I was drunk and insulted someone's spouse last Christmas.'

DZ: 'Whose spouse?'

SW: 'Cathy Ruckert's.'"

"Let me see that!" Mom said, and swooped the paper from me. "That bastard. I need a drink."

She walked to the living room and back. "That SOB," she whispered.

She began to pace back and forth in the kitchen, and without fixing herself a drink, returned to preparing supper, talking to herself.

I snuck out of the kitchen and phoned Jessie from my bedroom.

"That bastard," she said when I told her the story. "Let me speak to your mom."

Mom and Jessie spoke for ten minutes, while I started to cut the lawn in the backyard. We had a large, level, treeless yard–perfect for an in-ground pool, as Ingrid and I had constantly pointed out to Mom and Dad. It was as big as half a soccer field. We also had an unreliable lawnmower, but it worked fine that day.

"Have you heard?" I asked Dad when he came into the backyard and kissed me.

He nodded. "Come on in, Pumpkin. Supper's ready."

From July 26 to August 9, I worked without a single day off. That Friday, I packed for Duluth and begged Dad to take me. He agreed.

Diane gave me several driving lessons that weekend. Jessie bought me The Encyclopedia of Delusions, edited by Ronald Duncan and Miranda Weston-Smith, and Hoaxes by Curtis D. MacDougall. Diane and Jessie drove me home on Sunday, around three o'clock. We didn't see the gang who had egged us all weekend.

"Detective Denis Kaze has video tape of several young people mulling about the Basle Building," Jessie said at one point, "and has identified an anti-abortionist group led by a Reverend Bowers of The Star Christian Association for Revelation of the Ecclesiastics. Isn't that funny?"

"What?" I asked.

"The Star Christian Association for Revelation of the Ecclesiastics spells the acronym, SCARE."

I laughed. "I wonder if they know?"

"Hardly likely. He's looking at the Association. He thinks the young people are connected with them. If he lets them know that B&R are onto them, they will cease to bother us. If not, next time we will press charges."

That afternoon back home in Vesey, I spotted John Williams in the public library and went to say hello. "I'm heading over to lay some flowers at my mother's gravesite," he said, closing a book, On the Beach by Nevil Shute.

I couldn't think of any way to join him without sounding foolish. "Do you mind if I come?"

From the library to the graveyard was about a two-minute walk, and with it being Sunday, when we arrived we weren't alone. John laid a bouquet: chrysanthemums, carnations, and roses interspersed with orchids such as butterfly, lady's slipper, and star-center. The different flowers of the bouquet were brilliant in the sunlight.

John was dressed in casual clothes, which was good, since I was in jean shorts and a t-shirt. I shooed a bee away from the flowers. "Your mother was a wonderful person," I said softly, "and the nicest teacher Vesey ever had."

The area of the graveyard where we stood was adjacent to the older sections to the north, but few flowers or wreaths had been laid recently at any of the old gravesites. That made me sad. Kelly's gravestone was marked by a small statue of the Madonna and child, and stood three feet high. John taped a photograph of Kelly to the headstone and silently prayed.

In the distance, birds fought with squirrels over food. I looked up to the tops of the trees, which rustled in the breeze, but couldn't see where the ruckus was coming from. The green leaves flickered mysteriously in the sunlight. The question that floated to my consciousness was how John kept his faith in God despite the recent death of his mother.

Jessie said that in times of turmoil, fear, or grief, people turn to religion–but in a situation like this, if it happened to me, I thought that I'd tend to question God's existence altogether. As for how John felt, again, I was at a loss. If someone took Jessie or Mom away from me, I would have wanted to fade away; I didn't think I would ever have been able to stop crying. Even then I was crying. John's pain was unimaginable to me and I wanted to hold him, to comfort him.

"Why me?" he said in a bleak voice at length. "Why did this have to happen to my family? We have this pathetic murderer, who killed our most wonderful mother; worse still, who has gone free. I couldn't feel more depressed if I tried. You know, there's an old Pollyanna expression that says, 'It's never as bad as it seems,' but in this case, it's actually much worse. Mom always preached forgiveness and charity. She never feared utter betrayal from him. Imagine such extremes of good and evil co-existing for so long in one family! I think he planned this some time ago. Paul and I knew of his philandering ways and of his obvious resentment of her, of all women. How could she not have known? The courtroom results mean nothing."

He looked over at me, his eyes full of tears. "How could he have gotten off? How could the system have failed so miserably?" A sob broke forth from him. "She gave us complete and unconditional love. He is nothing but a pig, guilty as the devil himself. I will never forgive him! He must have known about Kent Vibert. I'm happy that she had found such a nice guy."

I could hardly believe my ears, and wondered from which source he had heard, but I kept my silence.

"You know," he said, "I've always wanted a dog. Mom said yes on numerous occasions, but he'd never buy me one. But now, I think I'll get one. I know I should probably buy a gun instead and revenge her. Perhaps I should leave Vesey before I do." He looked over, but I hid my feelings of alarm. "Should he walk around a free man?" he continued.

What could I say? I hoped he was just ranting. Who could blame him?

"Your mom wouldn't want it," I said. I couldn't think of anything else to add, but an overpowering desire to comfort him nearly tempted me to agree with everything he said, to tell him it would be okay, and to take his suffering away; to kiss his face softly and dry his tears.

We left and walked downtown, saying very little to one another. "I've got to go," he said when we reached the main intersection.

"I'll see you soon, then," I mumbled.

I watched him go, and returned home both inspired and disappointed.

Monday morning was sunny. It promised to be a warm summer day,. I went to work for eleven o'clock, and opened the outdoor pools with Joel and Carrie.

Joel was a chubby fifteen-year-old boy with bad facial acne, who was not too bright, but swam adequately and worked hard. He had no sense of humor that I could see, but he loved to gossip with Carrie, and the two of them never stopped talking when they were together.

If they knew anyone in Vesey, they had something to say about them. I would have loved to hear what they said about me behind my back. It wasn't that they were always uncharitable, but they took hearsay as the gospel truth.

Carrie was fiercely independent and intelligent. Like Joel, she was also chubby: at sixteen years old, she already weighed way more than she should, and I dreaded to think how much she would weigh after she had babies. I thought of that because she had a steady boyfriend, and according to her, they were already talking of marriage, home, and children. As Jessie said, some women were just born to breed. She called them 'Grazers.'

Joel's dad worked for Technique Steel and Metal Company, so he was a good source of information on Stacy Williams. Carrie had no father; he had left her mother before she was born.

"My dad told me that Stacy Williams was arrested yesterday in Duluth for soliciting sex from a policewoman decoyed as a prostitute," Joel said as we prepared for our noon opening. Just the three of us were there.

"Is that right?" Carrie said with a laugh. "I'm not surprised. A friend of mine from Elmer told me that Stacy Williams picked her up hitchhiking and got real creepy with her, asking her about sex and getting into her space–the dirty old man."

"Dirty old murderer," Joel said. "Dad says he's got a leave of absence from the company and is living at the Duluth Parkview Hotel, this seedy place on the docks. He's drunk all the time and wanders the street looking to buy sex from young girls."

"He's out on the streets, spending Kelly Williams' money," Carrie said.

I was vacuuming the pool by then, and Carrie was getting the chlorine reading. Joel was sweeping off the large cement patio.

"Dad said he got a share of an insurance settlement from her benefit," Joel said.

"How do you know all this?" I asked, looking up at the sky. There wasn't a single cloud; already, I could feel the intensity of the sun on my skin.

Joel shrugged. "Dad knows that stuff. He says Stacy's lost ten pounds and is growing a beard. Stacy told Dad he'll never come back to Vesey."

"Good," Carrie said.

"I'll put up the umbrellas," I said when I was done cleaning. "There's not much wind today."

"I'll tell you something else," Carrie added. "Laura Graves knows this street kid working in Duluth, who ran away from home in Minneapolis or Cleveland. I can't remember. They met in Hibbing at a party."

"You hang with Laura?" I asked.

"We've done morning day-camp together," Carrie continued. "Anyway, Laura felt sorry for this fourteen year old girl. She wears those short, tight leather skirts and revealing halter-tops. She told Laura that she can get out of those types of clothes fast for her customers. What a real nice, old-fashioned curbside whore. Her name's Mary Hynes. I met her once. She's pretty enough, in a Dracula sort of way–pale and too much makeup."

We laughed. "Joel, are you done with that?" I asked.

"Almost," he said, "I heard her step-dad abused her, and that's why she does it."

I dove into the water and swam to the deep-end and back. "Can you tell me about Mary Hynes?" I asked, getting out of the pool. "I missed the last part."

"She claims that one of her regular tricks is Stacy Williams," Joel said. "She called him Mr. Spooky Eyes, and said that lots of the time, he couldn't–" He stopped and looked over. I could tell that he was wondering what language was appropriate. "Perform. He's a big-time booze-can, and usually falls asleep before she even can get undressed. One time, she emptied his wallet, which he left out on the dresser drawer. Six hundred bucks! Laura says Mary's parents had thrown her out, but with that money she'd decided to return home to St. Paul. I think it was St. Paul, and not Minneapolis or Cleveland. I've forgotten for certain. Apparently her step-father, who was abusing her, left soon after she did, and her mother told her she could come back. I heard this all from Laura, and my dad says it's totally true, only the way Stacy told it to him is that Mary knocked him out first and then stole the money. But don't believe it! Stacy tried to press charges against her. She might have even been arrested."

That night I phoned John to tell him the story. It was the excuse I needed to talk to him, but he wasn't home and didn't return my call.

It rained on Wednesday, and I was off for the day. I phoned Jessie. She was in Duluth, and seemed more than agreeable to having me over. I didn't come back home to Vesey until Friday because it rained on Thursday as well.

On Thursday evening, we had a barbeque at Jessie's. Her balcony was private and had retractable weather shutters, so you could use it in the rain. She had installed potted trees and beautiful, comfortable patio furniture, and even a portable cassette player. She played Bach all evening.

We cooked eggplant, zucchini, and sliced red potatoes. Jessie roasted whole peppers stuffed with chopped onion, garlic, mushroom, and lobster. Diane stayed over and slept in the spare bedroom.

I returned home to Vesey, and worked Friday and Saturday at the pool. Mom said we were going out to a fancy restaurant on Saturday night. I dressed in a slim, red cotton dress that Jessie had just bought me that week. It was a simple dress to throw on, almost a pullover, and cuddled my body nicely. Jessie said that my breasts and hips were showing. Diane said I looked just turvy-curvy in red. I put on earrings with a bright red fake gem, plus a necklace and anklet with red teardrops. Jessie had bought them at Sears. I thought I looked okay. I hoped that by some freak chance that I would see John Williams tonight.

Ingrid wore a colorful summer dress that I found too revealing, but Mom dressed no better. She wore a red dress that fell down past her knees, but it had slits up the sides and an open low neck that revealed a lot of her cleavage. Her neck was adorned with a silver necklace with a heart-shaped pendant. I knew she had gotten it from Jessie for her last birthday. Dad was in a brown corduroy suit and a light-green shirt opened at the neck. He epitomized my idea of a male, especially with his kind eyes–aqua-blue, almost green with a roughed kindness. He had wrinkles, and his hair had a splash of Scottish red-gray color, giving him a touch of youthful wisdom, but he also had a tall muscular shape that was softened only by his trim beard. He was thirty-three-years-old–two years younger than Mom.

A fireplace lay unlit across from our table at Tramanils. I sort of wished it was on. I found the restaurant cool. When you get so much sun during the day, I found, you sometimes get the chills in the evening. On the mantelpiece were an antique oil lamp, small replicas of tall ships, and pictures of the owner and staff of the restaurant. High along the walls, there were rows of shelves displaying century-old kitchen utensils. Mom and Dad sat next to one another, and were smooching.

"I want a kiss too," Ingrid said, coming around and kissing them both on the cheek.

I had brought the Vesey Review with me, and on the top right-hand corner of the front page was the weather forecast for Sunday in bold letters: Sunshine and Clear Skies. By the looks of it, I would be working tomorrow. The headline below it reported an international story of the death of sixty-five people, and injury of two hundred and fifty more, in a commuter train wreck in Chan, Thailand. That was followed by a national story of escalating gas prices and gas line-ups, and the anger it caused across the country. Lastly, a local story ended the page: the death of a four-year-old girl, Janis Dayton, in a house fire on Caroline Street, Vesey. A picture of the toddler before she had died accompanied the story.

"Were you at that one?" I asked Dad.

"We all were," he said, "and we had help from the Payne Station too."

"What about you, Mom?" I asked further.

"Dr. Boyer did that one, I just couldn't. I'm getting sentimental."

"Dave Horus and I found the body," Dad said. "It wasn't burned at all. It was like a little doll."

"They were smokers, I think," Mom said.

"It was electrical," Dad contradicted.

When the waiter came, Mom ordered Southern Comfort and Seven-Up, Dad and Ingrid requested cola, and I asked for apple juice. Mom reached over to the empty table beside us and took the unlit candle from it.

"It's going to rain tonight," she said. She lit the candle with the one already burning at our table so that we had two. Where she had heard it would rain, I had no idea.

"How are you doing, my devoted, loving wife?" Dad asked, smiling in his special way, "and why have you taken us here in our party clothes?"

I had been wondering about that same thing myself.

"Why does there have to be an ulterior motive?" Mom pleaded.

He grunted. I too remained suspicious. "We've been married fifteen years," he said. "Tell me straight up. What are you planning?"

She looked down at her empty plate and took a deep breath. I knew it was going to be a whopper.

"I've been accepted into Forensic Medicine at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Campus," she said. She watched for our responses. "After graduation–in other words, within a year–I can have a position with the St. Paul's Criminal Investigations Bureau. They will pay for the tuition upon completion of the course, and I can work at the Woman's University Clinic on weekends while I'm there to make up for some of the loss of my wages."

"You will resign as the coroner?" he asked. I saw that at least they had discussed it at some point in the past; Dad wasn't completely blindsided. Mom nodded. "You're the devil's daughter," he continued. "If I wasn't physically stronger than you, my rights would be trampled. Does that clinic do abortions?"

"They do referrals only. Can you live with it?"

"You're sure that the Minneapolis Police Force won't demand that you start at the bottom with the rest of the graduates, or anything fair like that?" he said sarcastically.

"You know how I told you about Pace Kunhardt, head of homicide, that really handsome officer? He promised that if I passed the physical and have the degrees in forensic science, he will place me in a seasoned investigative unit, with a senior partner, in the busiest downtown precinct. I will take statements from victims, interview criminals after their apprehension, and such, until I learn the ropes. There will be the regular stuff, of course–a character background search, a vision and physical examination, and so forth–but those are things I know I will pass." She stopped. "Why did you screw up your eyes like that?"

"I haven't said a thing," Dad said.

"I can tell by your face," she responded.

"Don't fight," Ingrid said.

"You're a doctor," Dad said. "Your father was a doctor before you, and his father before him."

"Your point?" she said, becoming irritable.

"Jessie has the controlling interest of one of the largest retailers of medical supplies in America. Medicine is your life."

"You say that, but your parents' lives involve medicine as well, and you didn't become a doctor."

"It isn't the same," Dad said. "They weren't doctors, they ran pharmacies, and like you, I don't want to go into the business world."

"Jessie isn't a doctor either," Mom said. "Next you are going to say that we can't ever leave Vesey."

Dad's expression darkened, and this brought a triumphant smile to her face. She gathered her hair up and tied it back. The waiter returned, and Mom ordered a martini and vegetable pasta with artichoke hearts, Mediterranean olives, and feta cheese. Dad ordered Swiss-Spanish manicotti stuffed with stilton cheese and crab legs, with a Perrier. Ingrid ordered spaghettini with mushrooms. I ordered two boneless, skinless chicken breasts a lá carte, with more apple juice. That was a Jessie-meal; she was already influencing my diet.

"Does this mean we're leaving Vesey?" I asked, after the waiter was out of earshot.

"Not necessarily," Mom returned. "If you're all nice about it, we can stay–plus, at no extra charge, I will take you all to Dairy Queen for dessert."

"Alright!" Ingrid said.

"Do you mean we should sell long-term for short?" Dad asked.

Mom turned red. The line was a famous quote from Jessie, who had first said it to Mom during a furious disagreement between them over Mom's future at B&R. "I don't know why you shouldn't," Mom said softly. "You always have before. Do you want me to hang myself from boredom?"

"We've already agreed," he said. "You have to spin your wheels. Have you told Jessie? She'll hit the roof."

"Jessie knows I don't want the business. Nat can have it."

"Nat's fourteen, for heaven's sake," Dad said.

"Dad," I said, "it's okay. Jessie's already told me I'm going to take over the business. She's only fifty years old; she can wait for me. Look at how much time I already spend at the Basle Building. Diane and her are already teaching me the business."

"See?" Mom said. "Some things are carved in stone. They are practically a mirror-image of each other anyway, just like Ingrid and I." She reached over and kissed Ingrid and me. "Besides, money and ambition always find each other." She looked at me and wagged her finger. "Not a word to Jessie until I speak to her myself."

"You say the most unprovable things," Dad said.

"This from a man's whose favorite expression is, 'God is everywhere.'"

"That's different," he retorted. "That's faith. So, you've got it all worked out then?"

"What to tell your parents is what really concerns me."

"I agree, they won't jump for joy either. It seems no one is jumping for joy except you."

"Don't start with that selfish stuff again. Besides, your parents were never thrilled in the first place about the fact that we fell in love."

"What do you expect? The day you met them, you had to tell them that you didn't believe in God."

"Let's not drag that out again either. I told you before, I didn't know they were Commanders in the Salvation Army. Remember, dear, you were so interested in getting it on that you forgot to tell me that part."

They both began laughing. "What's so funny?" Ingrid asked.

"Sex," I answered.

"Sometimes, Ingrid," Dad said, "especially to teenage boys, sex is even more important than the truth."

Mom calmed down. I could see that she knew that the hard parts of the negotiations were behind her. Our meals were served and the waiter had finished, she said in a soft conciliatory voice, "The course is one year, and the Bureau will train me on a starter salary for six months after it's done."

"After this is out of your blood," Dad said, "you're going to become a Stepford Wife, right?"

She laughed. "I love you. You're the best damn guy they ever made, the best fireman, and the best Christian."

"And the best father," Ingrid and I said.

"You'll go out and get the bad guys?" Dad said, after we had eaten for a few minutes.

"Isn't that what you do at the Sally Anne?"

"We don't put them in prison, my dear: in their souls, they're already there. We try to lift them from their oppression. I have found a nice balance in Vesey between my personal desires, and my duties as a Christian. The evil of the world is often caused by the moral will being overruled by passion."

"Law can't forgive, sweetie. If it did, it wouldn't be law and we would live in chaos."

"In the Army, we say, 'Only God forgives,' and that people shouldn't judge; however, society must protect itself from violence. I have no argument there."

"Then it's settled. I'll go?"

"You'd settled it long before I sat down."

"Well, good, then. I do believe I will have another martini."

"Go ahead," Dad said. He leaned over and whispered something in her ear, kissing her, then she kissed him on the mouth.

The next day was Sunday, August 25, and I started a week's holiday in Duluth. Jessie didn't really ever take holidays, but she promised to go with me to the live theater in the Twin Cities to see Macbeth. Her condo had a large pool, and in the summer, it opened to a sparsely wooded area where you could suntan. I read The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien and Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand that week. I was totally engrossed, and stayed up late every night reading them.

"That's overdosing on pure romantic heroism," Jessie said when she noticed. "You'll lose all sense of reality."

On Wednesday, she bought me Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, and War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.

"That will sober you up," she said, giving them to me. She was right. They toughened me up really fast; they were long, hard reads.

In September, I started grade eleven. The workload was easy. I wished I could say I was happy to be back, but I didn't have a single classmate in my homeroom class who I would have considered special. Everybody needs friends, but if you didn't want to smoke, have sex with the football team, tell mindless jokes, do reefer or drugs, get fat, talk trash, or whine about school–or worse still, if you enjoyed reading philosophy and serious literature, listening to classical music, knew that MacDonald's was not 'The best, dude!'; if you liked your teachers, liked work, liked to be good, focused, moral, and hell, everything positive–then you might as well go hang.

It was like Jessie said: "Most teenagers spend their nights and days trying to turn off their minds."

On my birthday, October 6, Mom and Dad bought me a telephone for my room, my own line, and a gift certificate from IT&T for long distance. Ingrid bought me a dress, which fit perfectly.

I put it on and walked downtown, looking to catch a glimpse of John Williams. I felt like a hooker, but one at whom nobody looked.

Good to her word, Jessie had arranged for me to take my driver's license examination on Saturday. I passed without any negative points, and when I returned with Diane to the condo, Jessie handed me the keys to her 1978 Mercedes. I couldn't really explain what I felt. It wasn't just a car, it was Jessie's car. Sure, she had another gray, brand-new Mercedes in the garage, but that wasn't the point. I was only fifteen, no matter how mature I tried to act. All I could think was, "Wait until John hears about it."

What Mom and Dad would think didn't even occur to me. The truth is, they couldn't have afforded the car I was going to drive home. It would have been exciting to bring it to school, perhaps, but I had already faced issues there: family prestige in Vesey via the Ruckerts and controversy through Jessie, plus Dad was the fire-chief, Mom was the St. Louis County coroner, and I was Little Miss Perfect. That reputation really hadn't done much–that is except to further isolate me.

In the end, I never took the car to school. I could see that Jessie had forewarned Mom and Dad about the Mercedes; they congratulated me on passing my driver's license, and the car went practically unmentioned. Even Ingrid, who was prone to fits of jealousy, only said, 'Cool.'

John Williams left for university in Chicago, and never even got to see the car. I knew I would miss him tremendously.

In grade eleven, I got the science-fiction bug. I went through Robert Heinlein's novels, and his philosophy of rugged individualism was downright appealing to me.

When I mentioned his ideas, like grog or the Howard Foundation, Jessie replied, "How youthful of you." That was the kind of thing you never wanted to hear from Jessie.

I read Isaac Asiminov's Foundation Trilogy. Jessie thought more of him and gave me his Opus 200 from her library. It was a collection of essays that made science easy to understand for the layperson. Katherine Kurtz, Pier Anthony, and Stephan Donaldson came next, and this, in turn, led me to The Earth Sea Trilogy by Ursula K. Le Guin. I soon read all of her novels and books.

Science fiction writers dealt constantly with issues of freedom and morality, and although it wasn't clear to me why, the premise of many works was an individual's freedom to make a free moral or political choice. I found Le Guin one of the best at this. I also read dozens of novels by Kurt Vonnegut, Philip José Farmer, and Frank Herbert. By the end of the year, I'd gone through perhaps fifty science fiction books, maybe more.

Ironically, in English literature, we studied three books and I disliked them all: The Horse's Mouth by Joyce Cary, Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and the Rabbit Trilogy by John Updike. But as much as I disliked them, I passed this, and all my other courses, with the highest marks.

After the Independence Day weekend in 1980, I spent a few weekends at home because Jessie was in France on business.

When Mom was home, she constantly studied, and Ingrid and I grew alarmed that she and Dad were going to separate. It wasn't on account of any squabbling or lack of affection. It was that they were never together. Before, they would chase us away to play and lock the bedroom door. Now, Mom worked, studied, came home, and fell asleep. Dad had become ominously quiet.

In the back of my mind, I was aware of Mom's presence when I was home, but I wouldn't have dreamed of bothering her. She had become grouchy since starting the courses on Forensic Medicine; it had turned out to be much harder than she had expected.

The old Ruckert Mansion was a great place to be in the summer. You could be alone, but never be lonely. It stayed nice and cool, and it had a pool, and lots of character and space–but that summer, the backyard was under major renovations. The pool was temporarily closed, and the yard was a mess. It prevented Ingrid and I from playing outside in the back.

The second Saturday in July developed into a sunny and warm day, although it had started with cold rain in the early morning. Ingrid danced noiselessly around Mom as she studied, like a silent angel, or a demon.

Mom had asked several times that Ingrid play away from the kitchen, where she worked at her studies. Mom had an upcoming law enforcement examination the next week; over twenty books on crime, violence, and justice sat on the table before her. At that moment, she was reading The Solution to Youth Violence. The next day, she would present her essay on criminal intent in human behavior to her class. Her year of studying law enforcement would end soon.

Mom and I often talked about Stacy Williams. He had walked away from the murder of his wife: Mom remained as positive of his guilt as John, his own son, did.

"I've the instinct for investigation," she admitted to me once. "All I need is to fine-tune it."

The whole Stacy Williams affair had become ironic to her. It had, in no small part, changed her life. It certainly had changed her career.

I signaled to Ingrid to join me, heading off a fight. "I'm going to play the piano," I whispered, "come with me."

I played Edelweiss from The Sound of Music. Ingrid sat on a loveseat in the piano-room with her face to me, and began to sing in accompaniment. Her voice started in a trembling vibration, but became more steady and grew in volume as we harmonized together in our duet. In July, Ingrid would be thirteen years old. She already weighed the same as I did, but other than that, there was little similarity between us. Ingrid was even more blonde than Mom, and her boobs were twice the size of mine. I loved her immensely, and I think I got far more out of our relationship than she did. She was always patient with me, even when I was boring her with intellectual matters.

When we were done, Mom stepped into the small room.

"That was beautiful," she said. "I need a break. Let's go see Dad and buy him lunch."

"Is Dad still mad at you?" Ingrid asked.

"He's mad at me?"

"He's afraid that we're going to have to move," I said.

"Dad loves it here," Mom said. "I know that. Do you think I would ever take that away from him? That's why God invented cars: to keep families like ours together."

"Henry Ford invented cars," I said. "God invented pianos."

"That sounded like Jessie," Mom said.

"Jessie says that God made boys so that girls can learn from their mistakes," Ingrid added.

"That's true," Mom said with a wink. "As you know, Jessie is the only person in the world who's never wrong." This made me angry, but I didn't show it. "I'm going back to school to learn how to make this world a better place," Mom continued. "You both understand that, right? Your dad and I have the same basic conception of why people behave as they do. He believes that fear of the Lord eventually leads to love of mankind; I believe that fear of law eventually leads to the love of society. Order and natural law lead to predictable behavior–without it, it becomes impossible for most people to live. That's why Jessie's skepticism is so unpalatable to most people. They can't live with chaos."

"Jessie says you are changing careers so that you won't have to accept responsibility for your life up to this point," I said, to defend Jessie.

"Jessie has no charity for anybody who doesn't agree with her," Mom retorted, on the edge of anger.

"That isn't true, " I shot back. "She just works too hard."

"She raised me," Mom said. "I think I know her pretty well–and besides, you're always getting her best version."

"Let's not fight about Grandma again," Ingrid said. "Let's go see Daddy."

Ingrid had it down pat. All Mom and my disagreements became entangled over Jessie now. I knew it, but felt helpless to do anything about it. Mom long ago had lost the philosophic battle with Jessie in my mind: Jessie's views on society, morality, and business always took precedence over Mom's. Some of them seemed antisocial and unacceptable to a well-rounded person, but Jessie could defend each and every one of them with impeccable logic.

"Well, let's get ready and go, then," I said.

We met Dad for lunch, and ate at The Burger Joint on the highway near Silica.

The next day was a beautiful Sunday, and I only had to work for four hours at the pool. Afterwards I went to the park, sat on a picnic table under an elm tree, and began reading Man in a High Castle by Philip K. Dick. After about half an hour, I rose to stretch and saw Paul Williams heading straight for me. Less and less he looked like his brother John.

"Hello," he said, coming up and sitting across from me. He dressed in a skin-tight t-shirt and shorts. "John phoned home last night. He said to say hello to you if I saw you. I was just over for a splash in the Kiwanis pond. How is it going there?"

"Fine."

"Joel's a character." He spelled out, 'R-E-T-A-R-D.' "And Carrie, phew. B-I-T-C-H."

I giggled like a twelve year old, instead of defending my fellow employees, both whom I had grown to like. How different from John he was. His eyes sparkled just like always; perhaps there was a bit of mischief in them now, but they had a hold on me. He had developed upper body muscles, but in a nice way, and had no hair on his body–at least where I could see.

"What?" he asked with a quick smile, staring into my eyes. Without warning, he reached over and kissed me on the lips as though he sensed his power over me, and knew that I would be an easy target.

I kissed him back, showing that I would surrender in a minute like some tramp. He crawled over the table and began kissing me in earnest. In a moment he had his tongue in my mouth and his hand up my blouse, squeezing my nipples. It was the first time anyone had ever touched me there. I felt my cheeks burning, and I could hardly breathe.

When he put his hand up inside the leg of my shorts and pushed aside my panties, I began to rub his mid-section in return. He unbuckled and unzipped his pants, exposing himself. I glanced down. I had always imagined it would be bigger. He took my hand and placed it around his shaft, showing me how to pump it up and down. Now he was rubbing me in a special way, and I lost track of whether I was even pumping him or not. An intense sensation of pleasure rose over me. I felt rhythmic contractions in my pelvis and bottom. My breathing and pulse raced, his kiss burned my throat, my tears burned my eyes.

The first thing I felt when it was over was that we had to immediately do it again; it felt wonderful. I shook the white, foamy liquid off my hand and took in breath. He had spurted mostly on the ground. I wiped my hand on the grass.

"Do you want to do it again?" I asked, in the voice of one who was pleading for their life.

"I can't," he said, "I've got to go."

He zipped up his pants and left without another word.

"I'll see you later," he shouted from a hundred steps away, and then was lost behind a row of two-story houses on Rousseau Street.

I walked home both elated and depressed, knowing in my heart that I'd just been used, and desperately trying to cloud that conclusion out of my mind. I finished my book before supper and started Richard George Adam's Watership Down.

After supper, I phoned Jessie, and without mentioning any names, told her what happened. "You didn't even ask whether he had a girlfriend," she said. "You lost yourself to sexual attraction. You've got to use your brain, girly, especially when the boys are thinking with two heads. The reason he rushed off was that he was ashamed; he had just cheated on his girlfriend."

I wanted to argue with her–how could she possibly know? However, I couldn't bring myself to be so small. In my experience, she was never wrong.

I phoned Mom, who was in St. Paul. Again without mentioning names, I told her the story and what Jessie had said about it.

"Remember, no sex without protection," she said. "If he'd wanted sexual intercourse today, would you have let him?"

"Mom, I'm not going to have sex out in the open."

"But let's say you were in private."

"I think so, yes."

"Are you just a foolish adolescent after all? Think of the consequences, Nat. As to the other thing, yes, likely he was cheating on his girlfriend and was ashamed. Jessie's almost never wrong about these sorts of things. Can I ask you something? I'm missing you right now, and I'm not saying this to make you feel guilty. I just need to know. Why do you always phone Jessie first?"

"That isn't true," I lied. "I mostly talk to you first, but sometimes, I talk to Jessie straight off to get the abuse out of the way. She can be open-minded like today, but often she isn't." This too was a lie–Jessie seldom criticized me–but she had told me long ago that if I wanted to have freedom in my relationship with her, I needed to avoid fighting with Mom, and lately we had been coming close to doing just that. I gave Mom my love and said good night.

I still wasn't satisfied. I found Dad in the den, and told him the story and what Jessie and Mom had said. "Who's the boy?" he asked.

"Do you promise to keep it a secret between father and daughter, no Mom?"

He nodded, and I told him.

"A shame about that family," he said. "Stacy is lost to the devil now, but John and Paul are good boys. I like Paul; he is popular. I'm thinking, though, that he sees Laura Graves. Gregg at the station got them a motel room at the Holiday Inn up on the highway one Friday night not so long ago. I could double-check, but I'm pretty sure it was for him and her. Sorry, Nat. But I thought you liked John Williams?"

"He's at a university in Chicago."

"I understand, Pumpkin, but sometimes you have to wait around. You are a beautiful young woman. Don't throw away your love on men who want you for only one thing. Remember: sex, like any of the appetites, involves a moral choice. Many men can't see that, and accordingly behave like the animals."

I kissed him good night. The entire night, I dreamt about Paul, but I didn't see him again until the Saturday evening of August 16. I was at a party in Elmer hosted by a friend of Carrie's, Christina Bauer.

The party was to celebrate the end of Christina's wearing dental braces–three years of it. Christina's parents were at the neighbor's place "nearby," and it was supposed to be a small party–but Christina was an intelligent, blue-eyed blonde bombshell with boobs, hips, and absolutely no belly, and of course, now, perfect teeth.

Word of her party had swept through the male underground grapevine of the county, and jocks from miles around had descended. They snuck in small bottles of vodka for the punch and smoked reefer on the back deck, smelling up the house, laughing too loudly, and dreaming about their sweet sixteen queen, Christina, the closest woman St. Louis County had to playboy caliber–at least in their minds.

She really was a sweet girl too: genuine and sincere, and although she was boy crazy, she was still a virgin. I thought that she had great fortitude. I had talked to her several times; she had no specifics in terms of advice, but smiled nicely and once even hugged me affectionately. Unlike Dad, she thought all the boys in Vesey were nice, and that none of them were animals.

I could be wrong, but I think that she recognized the value of her own stock and that sex, for her, wasn't for pleasure, nor was love art for art's sake. Vanity was a means to an end, and that end was a big home, a luxurious way of life, and a family.

Paul didn't talk to me that night. He traveled with a large group of boys and girls, all of them older than me, among them Laura Graves–plus he was drunk. Laura was stick-thin, but did have noticeable boobs and hips. The thing about her, beside her long black hair and kind brown eyes, was that her angular face was pretty.

I said hello, and she smiled nicely and kissed my cheek when we shook hands. She obviously suspected nothing, and I was tempted to tell her what her boyfriend was doing. But had it happened because of my behavior?

She was in a white lace blouse and tight black pants, and Christina wore a white cotton summer dress with patterns of brilliant red gloxinia and yellow oxalis blooms. I was in a plain green stretch cotton slipover that hugged my body closely. Carrie wore a cowboy shirt and loose jeans.

Many of the teenagers at the party were making no sense and getting mindlessly drunk. I said goodnight to Christina and Carrie early, and left.

I was to travel to Duluth the next day, and wanted to leave first thing in the morning. I was going to stay the last week of summer with Jessie, and on Tuesday afternoon, I was going to drive to the Twin Cities to have supper with Mom. As I pulled out of the driveway onto County Road Five heading north to Hull, I was pulled over by Officer Sam Ellis.

"You weren't drinking at that party?" he asked. I shook my head. "Good girl. I pity anyone who is."

"Why?" I asked.

"We have all the roads covered, and we are laying charges tonight. We're checking everyone who drives by. After last week, with Doug Dickson's death–well, you can imagine. We've had a bad summer; we are right up to here with it." He indicated his forehead. "See you, Nat. Say hello to your mom."

I drove home and read Walter M. Miller Jr.'s Canticle For Leibowitz for an hour or so, then turned out the lights. All night, I dreamt of Laura Graves and Paul Williams making love together on an old couch at a chaotic party. I dreamt that I was drunk, and drove Jessie's Mercedes Benz off the road on the way home and down a steep embankment into a thick cluster of tall pines, just as Doug Dickson had. The car exploded in a propane fire, and I woke screaming.

Dad had been called to the accident with Doug Dickson, and had used the Jaws of Life to get him out as he screamed in pain. Dad said that he was mangled and crushed so badly that everyone knew he wouldn't last the night. No one had seen him go off the road either, and he had suffered in horrible, agonizing pain for hours. A driver had spotted him at dawn; even then, he was crying out in mind-numbing pain. Jessie said about this part of life that if there's a God, he's a psychopath who loves suffering. She told me once about a program she had seen on TV, about two hungry young rogue lions roaming the plains of Serengeti National Park. At one point, they hunted down and trapped a lioness with a broken leg and her cub, who had been abandoned by their lair. The two rogue lions raped the lioness, then killed and ate her and her cub. Jessie's point at the time was that the majesty of life was greatly overrated, but I took it differently. Nature itself seemed to prove that there was no thoughtful, benign intervening force in the world–at least not for that lioness and her cub, and not for Doug Dickson.

Chapter Five

The next day, Sunday, Diane, Jessie, and I had a wonderful time. I had brought with me novels by Nora Roberts, Barbara Delinsky, Jacky Collins, and Sandra Brown, which I'd borrowed from Ingrid, but I kept them out of sight of Jessie. She called women's fiction "fluff," and would have complained bitterly that I'd lost my mind or some such thing. One time I'd caught Diane reading a Danielle Steel novel, and she put a finger to her lips for me to keep it secret.

Jessie asked me to work with her on Monday and Tuesday to go over some of the fiscal installments of B&R. Monday wasn't too bad, but for hours on Tuesday, I forced myself to stay focused on the last figures in the company ledgers. After two days of solid numbers, I was buggy-eyed.

Jessie's petite body exuded nervous energy that day. She moved around the office like a much younger woman, but with the presence of a coming storm. This alone would have made her unique among many women at fifty, but I knew it was much more than an appearance. She had been raised by a father who had always pushed her into business at Basle Pharmaceutical, and as she told me many times, she excelled under his friendly guidance. Grandpa, her former husband, however, was another matter. He became controlling when her father died. As Jessie said, he had tried to muzzle her, and she had learned to fight back.

Like on many other days, I was happy just being in her company. I felt quite sentimental about it, even if Jessie sometimes set the bar too high. She expected the best of me, and I kept my fingers crossed hoping that I could deliver it.

That day, I wore a gray dress that fell below my knees–Jessie had bought it for me–and I had gathered my hair in braids at the back. It fell straight down past my waist. Jessie thought it should be cut shorter, but I had held out in this one regard. As Mom had taught me, it was a personal thing, and no religion, state, boss, or even grandmother should dictate my hairstyle. Still, my hair was in dispute with Jessie. "Business is more important than boys," she always said. But I really didn't believe that was true.

As Mom said, "Boys give life to the party."

I pressed hard to pass as a full adult. Only in Jessie's presence did I hide my ambition and show deference to her. My goal to eventually run B&R overrode most of my short-term pleasures, but I showed humility when I had to–and with Jessie, I always had to.

On a separate white sheet to the side of the Company's thick ledger, I wrote the final figure that I'd calculated: $1,105, 675.67. Jessie rose from the chair and looked at it.

"Very good," she said. "Let's hurry up with the other column; your mother is going to be here any minute."

I rubbed my eyes and yawned.

"I wonder, why does it always seems to me to be raining in Duluth?" I asked aloud, as though rhetorically.

"As punishment, dear, for the way the settlers treated the Aborigines after they stole their land. The Ruckert family came from that old establishment."

I laughed. "You can't blame them for that one, I'm afraid."

"Don't be a twit, my little kettle of fish. Of course I can."

"Why did you buy them out then, if blood money built their corporation?" I asked, teasing her.

"For your mother's sake," she answered without smiling. "The Ruckert's business neared extinction. I've told you before, Christian's parents are well-meaning bunglers, and there are no greater enemies to capitalism. They might be honest and decent folks, and that's why I left the Vesey plant for them to manage–but quite frankly, and remember that this is another one of our secrets, they don't even manage that well. When your mom met your dad, they both lost their heads. I had to step into the breach."

I laughed. "Why did you close the Ruckert Pharmacies? That's their number one complaint against B&R."

"I can assure you, it was not out of meanness. It is true that I wanted the hospital business, and besides, the Ruckert family overpaid their employees and couldn't compete properly in the retail market. That was their fault. When I bought in, it had come down to swim or sink."

"But you must admit, they're awfully nice."

"I've often said that the Ruckert and Basle families are like wine and gasoline. In wine there's truth, but in gasoline, there's fuel. The world has a need for both." Jessie looked out the window and touched the pane. "Remember, to taste the sea, all one needs is one gulp."

"What does that mean?"

"You will find it in Solzhenitsyn, dear, not Danielle Steel." She gave me a half-wink. "It means that to know freedom, all one has to do is have liberty once, or even dream of it."

"Mom says that you speak so much about freedom because you're oppressed."

Jessie looked over sharply, and I at once regretted saying it. "Let's continue with the books."

In front of me on Jessie's large desk lay a plaque and a pen set, inscribed: 'Those who believe in magic will refuse to rely on their mind.'

I stared at this for a moment. I couldn't focus any longer on the numbers.

"What drives the present market is fear of the unstable dollar," Jessie had said, just that morning. "American organized labor pleads for more regulation, consumer advocates beg for more protection, and business leaders want fewer taxes."

"The bureaucratic structure of B&R is worse than the federal government," she had said yesterday, going into a tirade. "If I had wanted to work for the government, I would have had half my brain removed. I would have sold the unused half to Reagan–no doubt he could use it. I'm seriously thinking of firing the whole upper echelon of our management team."

"I've dreamed of a life where all the beautiful losers will leave me alone to follow the truth," she had said another time. "The Christians, labor-activists, and government representatives are not really to blame, though. They have been created by greed. We should round up all the capitalists who cheat, and throw them in jail. The trouble with this is that both political parties would collapse from lack of funding."

So it went. Jessie was never happy about the company's performance, society, Mom and Dad, the Ruckerts, government, or anything else in life.

The pattern had been established years before: one minute, a dragon lady, the next, an old softy, and like Mom had said: "she's unhappy, and it can't be otherwise."

I pretended to match the columns, but on the sly, I watched Jessie while she looked out of her office window. If I hadn't known her, I would have never guessed she had raised a child: she was detached from any of the usual softness that motherhood brings. Yet for all that, she wasn't just the woman I admired more than anything in life, she was also my grandmother–although, I would never have reminded her of that.

She poured herself another coffee, then her phone beeped.

"Jessie," Diane said, "Cathy's here."

Mom came in and threw her stuff aside to a chair. She kissed Jessie, and then me. I could tell that Jessie had tensed. "Coffee, dear?" Jessie asked.

Mom nodded. "Did you get more plants?" she asked, and Jessie shook her head no. "Auntie Doreen died last night, you know," Mom added

"Were you with her then when she passed away?" I asked.

Mom nodded and was about to say something more, when Jessie interrupted. "She made it to her nineties. We should all be so lucky."

"I've come by a few minutes early today to tell you something," Mom said. "This last year has gone very successfully. I've decided that I'm definitely leaving medicine and going into law enforcement."

I watched both of their faces for a moment, then my eyes darted to the door. I had not said a single thing on this subject to Jessie, and what she knew of it–and she must have known something–I had no idea.

"What is it with you?" Jessie said. "Isn't it plenty that you've become involved with the Salvation Army? That's hurtful enough. We're a medical family; scientists. We've been this way for two centuries. Why law enforcement? You've slept with that Kunhardt guy, haven't you?"

"Who I sleep with is none of your business," Mom said.

I knew Mom said this to infuriate Jessie. "Oh, Mom," I said in alarm, "why do you talk like that?"

"Are you taking her side?" Mom asked.

"Can I wait outside?" I asked.

"We were just leaving," Mom said.

"Go, then," Jessie said, and turned to face the window. "This is the only way you have to hurt me." She spoke as though she was talking to herself. "I gave you the finest of everything," she added before we'd reached the door, "a proud professional title, an opportunity to be one of the wealthiest businesswomen in the world. I helped you become a fine swimmer, an excellent diver, a fine figure-skater and piano player. I didn't send you off to some school in Europe, I gave you these things of myself, just as my mother did for me. There are women who would fall down on their knees and kiss my feet with grateful tears in their eyes for what I have done."

Mom's face flushed. This kind of talk, I knew, might put her over the top.

"I don't believe that I complained about my lost childhood," she said. "I'm thirty-five, and have found happiness despite my upbringing. I think I can appreciate those things you did for me. Why else would I teach them to Nat and Ingrid? There is no need to apologize for not supplying me with a loving father or with any happiness in my childhood."

I watched them, and saw that Mom's words hit their target. Jessie spun around.

"I'm going into law enforcement," Mom continued before Jessie could retort. "I'm bored with straight medicine. The prospects for a life in business just don't entice me. Nat can have the business; you can see that I haven't interfered with your relationship with her."

"You are such an ass," Jessie said.

"Why do you wish to put something on me that I don't want?"

"This isn't some career opportunity for a bewildered college graduate: it's a mission. Why did I push these things on you, back in your childhood? The questions are all the same. A person's desire and ambition are the measure of that person. This is about power to supply the women of the world with medical and scientific advancement in the fight against superstition and religion."

Jessie came forward as though she had gained the upper hand. "In the sixties, we fought the Catholics for use of the pill. In the seventies, we fought the state for the right to advertise sanitary napkins, then we fought the right-wing Baptists so that we could sell home pregnancy detection kits and to do research into the morning-after pill. In the eighties, we'll fight for a birth control pill for men, home remedies for ailments such as yeast infections, a pill to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, and so many other things. In the nineties, I intend to market home swab tests and blood tests for detecting breast cancer–they are on the planning board now–and much more. To educate, to put science at the fingertips of every female adult to control their own reproductive choices and bodies: this is war, as I have told you so many times."

"I'm ashamed that you would use these old arguments on me," Mom said. "I can fight in my own way against vice, and as you know, many religious people are perfectly scientific."

"Bosh. Deep down, all religious people believe in magic."

"That's enough," Mom said, opening the door. "You should hardly lump Christian with in that crowd if you ever want to see us again."

I could see that Mom had been wounded by Jessie's remarks, but also that Jessie's face had softened.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I retract that last remark in Christian's case."

Mom and I had supper in Duluth, and we didn't discuss Jessie once. We had skating, diving, piano practice, and other matters to plan. I wanted to stop skating, and Mom wanted me to do it for one more year. She thought that in university, I would stop them all. Though I didn't dispute it, I had no such intention; depending how hard it was, I would at least keep diving. I agreed to figure skate for one more year, and that turned out to be a good decision.

Grade twelve was a piece of cake.

On my sixteenth birthday, October 6, 1980, Mom and Dad bought me Fred Saberhagen's Empire of the East, Pat Frank's Alas, Babylon, and Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's Lucifer's Hammer. They turned out to be good reads, but I knew at once that a guy had chosen them, and that guy wasn't Dad. He knew nothing about sci-fi. I wondered if it was John Williams.

Ingrid bought me John Wyndham's The Chrysalids.

From Jessie, I receive jewelry, a necklace, an anklet, and earrings, crafted of silver and black jade, and from Diane, Six Friends by Alistair Cooke and the Illuminatus! trilogy by R. A. Wilson.

That year, my marks exceeded my former grades, and my Scholastic Assessment Test was also high. I was accepted to the University of Chicago's Business School; Jessie was happy as could be. I once again lifeguarded that summer with Carrie and Joel. I saw neither Paul nor John Williams.

During that summer I read A. T. Wright's Islandia, Tom Robbins' Another Roadside Attraction, Douglas Adams' The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy in Five Parts, Sinclair H. Lewis' Babbitt, Lawrence George Durrell's Alexandria Quartet, Carlos Castaneda's Don Juan Trilogy, and Paul Theroux's The Mosquito Coast. At Jessie's insistence, I also read George Santayana's The Life of Reason.

It was soon after I finished this book, that I decided to take a philosophy course in my first year, a course on Plato and Aristotle called "Greek Philosophy After the Suicide of Socrates."

It is hard to believe Plato theorized on the actual existence of the forms, or that Aristotle thought that democracy was a form of tyranny. If you were schooled by Jessie, there was no other world except the one you sensed around you, period, and no other school of political thought worth considering except democracy, end of discussion–but then, that was Jessie.

In literature, we studied the Russians: Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Babel, Gogol, Turgenov, Chekhov, and Gorky.

"Maybe we should pay you to read books when you're finished," Jessie said when she found out that it was my best mark.

In my second year, I took philosophy again. The course, "The Birth of Modern Philosophy," was given by a young female philosopher. It was an overview of Rene Descartes, John Locke, David Hume, Emmanuel Kant, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. It was fascinating, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I was surprised how Jesse, in her own wry way, described each philosopher better than anyone else could–in one line.

"Descartes," she said, "claims we can only know things through the mathematic method; Locke counters that we can only know things through the senses. Hume contends that there's no causality, only inference, and therefore no certainty. Kant says only God guarantees our knowledge, and Wittgenstein says we must pass in silence over all information that is blocked by our inadequate language. In all, if we took them at their word, we would throw ourselves into the sea."

I laughed. "What can we do?" I asked her.

"I know that it sounds hopeless," she said, "but here's what's required. If you want certainty, then you must find God–but to find God, you must have the IQ of an idiot. So, if you're without the assistance of Christ, Mohammed, Buddha, or any of the rest of the supernatural circus, then you're on your own. Philosophy isn't going to help you decide; on the contrary, it will prove to you without a doubt that human reason is inadequate to even make toast in the morning."

"Are you saying that I shouldn't study philosophy anymore?"

Jessie shook her head. "Quite the opposite. It isn't a lot to work with–but it is all you've got if you are trying to decide on issues without an almighty supernatural arbitrator."

In literature, we opened with Kafka's The Metamorphosis, followed by books from Zola, Proust, de Maupassant, and Stendhal. It was to be my last literature course.

In 1983, I took my third and final philosophy course, "The Linguistic Analysts," a course on Moritz Schlick, Rudolf Carnap, A.J. Ayer, Gilbert Ryle, John Austin, P.F. Strawson, and W.V. Quine. When I discussed them with Jessie, she produced The Logic of Scientific Discovery and The Open Society and Its Enemies by Karl Popper. She didn't like the Linguistic Analyst crowd either.

"They seem to have a bird's eye view of the world," she said of the analysts. "It's all raw broccoli. That's okay if you've acquired a taste for uncooked vegetables. At least with Bertrand Russell, if you eat all your beef you get some Yorkshire pudding too. With them, phew, they're the product of being straight-jacketed for centuries by Kant and Wittgenstein."

Even though I enjoyed the course, I only received passing marks.

When I started my fourth year, all my courses were business related. Jessie told me that it might be my last year of school, and to study hard.

On Friday, September 16, 1983, just a week into school, I traveled to Duluth to meet Mom, Dad, and Ingrid at the Saint Louis Arena. There, Ingrid skated to qualify for the American Olympic figure skating team for the Winter Games in Lake Placid.

Duluth and other northeastern mid-sized cities were hosting some opening preliminaries for the Games, and the arena was crowded. Officials from the National Olympic Skating Committee and the sports media had gathered in sizeable numbers. It had a carnival atmosphere when I arrived, but I was distracted, looking for my family.

I had obtained my tickets beforehand, and met my parents at their seats. I kissed Mom and Dad, and looked around for Ingrid. "She's up in fifteen minutes," Dad said. "You made it on time."

"We've been here since twelve-noon," Mom added. I think she was a little annoyed with me.

A giant electronic four-sided billboard flashed: "Up Next: Ingrid Basle; Followed by, Chantal White; Followed by the Men's Finals, First Competitor, Edward Arsco."

It was hard to ignore the attention given to the skaters at this event compared with normal times, but when Ingrid came on the ice, I paid the media and the crowd little attention.

Her routine was wonderful, and she made only one small error. She placed fourth. When she rejoined us, after Chantal White finished, we hugged and congratulated her. She asked to go. She was flushed and looked beautiful, but we could all see that she was exhausted.

Mom brushed blonde streaks of hair out of her eyes, then checked her watch. The judges sat seven rows of seats below us. The men's figure skating competition commenced in only minutes.

"Do you want to go out to eat?" Mom asked. Ingrid nodded. "Fine, we'll get going. It's been a long day anyway."

I think Dad wanted to stay, but he said nothing. Ingrid rushed around and said goodbye to her friends and teammates, and then we left. Ingrid strapped into the back with me. The Duluth Review sat on the seat between us. It had been days since I'd been able to read the paper. This one carried the headline, "Israeli invasion of Lebanon: they 'may' concede their Northern and Beirut Territories to a UN Force led by American troops."

Below this was a picture of Lech Walesa, with the caption, "Polish Government promises no harm to Solidarity Union Leader, to be released soon."

On the bottom half of the front page were three stories: "'Recession ending,' Reagan assures GOP," "P.W. Botha's offer of limited government reform for South Africa is a step in the right direction," and a review of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska titled, "A ghostly wind blows through it."

After a moment of sitting in our parking spot, I looked up to see what was taking mom so long to start the car.

"What is it?" I asked, noticing that she was focused on something other than driving.

"My goodness," Mom said, and then repeated it with an inaudible whisper.

"What?" Dad said softly.

"That man." Mom pointed to a derelict on the street who was passing out pamphlets. He had an unruly beard, and his long, stringy hair looked like it hadn't been cut for a long time.

"At first I didn't recognize him," Mom continued. "It's only been a few years after all, but he has changed entirely. It's as though it's been decades."

"Who?" I said, stretching over the backseat with Ingrid to see.

"Stacy Williams," she said.

"The bum over there?" I asked, not recognizing him at all.

"I see him," Ingrid said.

"Get the camera," Mom said.

"It isn't him," Dad said, and hunted through the bags for the camera.

"It's him all right," Mom returned. "His clothes are filthy and he's giving out pamphlets... it's him... I would never forget that face, but it doesn't seem possible."

Dad passed Mom the camera. "It can't be."

"How quickly we fall," she whispered.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"I have to be certain," Mom said with a low voice. "Stay here. I'll just be a second."

She took the camera and stepped out of the car. I went with her, staying a bit behind.

From a distance of twenty feet away, she took several pictures. Then she put the camera into her purse and walked toward him. The derelict didn't notice us when we approached. He had an unfocused look on his face, and in a gruff manner, he was begging passer's-by to take what he offered.

He repeatedly said, "God bless you."

Only then did I recognize him. Even up close, I could hardly believe the change of his appearance.

Automatically, he passed us pamphlets, just as he did for everyone else who walked passed him. The pamphlet was titled, "THE NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION OF THE GOSPEL OF JOHN, WITH NOTES FOR PERSONAL EVANGELISM."

"Stacy, is that you?" Mom asked.

He looked up from his reverie, and stared at us as though trying to place us.

It was him, alright. I would never forget those eyes. At the trial, I had looked into them–only now, they weren't quite the same. Where blind defiance had lain behind them before, and often lethargy, now there were two burned-out craters: eyes which had seen hell, dead eyes.

"Stacy Williams?" Mom repeated. He tried to focus. "It's Cathy Ruckert."

"Oh my Lord," he said. "Every day, my past sins burn me anew. I'm so sorry, but there's no one to forgive me."

"Sorry for what?" I said. "You were exonerated."

"No, I'm guilty," he said, "just as we are all guilty."

Mom grabbed him by the arm. "Stacy! Go to Chief Spade. Come clean. Find some peace before you destroy yourself."

With that said, we turned around and returned to the car.

When I looked back, he had returned to his solicitation.

I scanned through the pamphlet and found that he had personally highlighted a section with bright pink liner. I realized this meant that he'd highlighted, by hand, all the pamphlets that he gave out.

"He's gone insane," I said. Neither Ingrid nor Dad responded to this, but Mom caught my eyes in the rearview.

I read the highlighted section, John 8:44. "You belong to your father, the devil," I read out loud in a soft voice, "and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies."

Often Mom and I had talked about the Williams' murder case, since at the time, she had seen it as a pivotal point in her life.

"He admitted it to us," she said to Dad. "He killed his wife, and he admitted it. See? From the start, my hunch was correct."

"I never doubted it," he said, "and nobody else in Vesey did either. We've all heard that he's gotten lost on the streets of Duluth."

"He looks like a leper," Ingrid said. I couldn't disagree. I phoned Jessie when I arrived home in Vesey and told her.

"Read me the quote," she said. I repeated it. "I'll be damned," she continued. "It's eating him alive."

In June of 1984, I graduated from university with honors. It was one of the proudest days of my life, and some days later, everybody came by Jessie's condo in Duluth for the graduation party.

Mom complained that the celebration should be in Vesey. "I paid for her university," Jessie told her, "and the party's going to be in Duluth."

The Ruckerts were genuinely impressed with Jessie's place, and said so many times. Jessie was happy with the effect.

"We impressed the bumpkins," she bragged afterwards.

Mom and Dad bought me the leather hardcover edition of the huge A History of Philosophy by Father Frederick Coppelston. Ingrid got me Trevanian's Shibumi and James Clavell's Shōgun.

Jessie and Grandma and Grandpa Ruckert bought me a four week trip to Europe, including stays in London, Paris, Rome, Berlin, Moscow, and Madrid, leaving in two weeks. Diane gave me a thousand dollars to spend on the trip.

I left for my trip, flying on British Airways out of Chicago to New York, and on to Heathrow International, on Sunday July 15.

I did a two-day bus tour of London with a group of Canadian tourists whose trip was almost over, and who were soon heading home to Halifax. I went on to Paris alone, and as in London, stayed in a fine bed and breakfast establishment. I went sightseeing with another small group of tourists, this time from Australia.

We visited the Eiffel Tower, Montmartre, Notre Dame Cathedral, and L'Arc de Triomphe. However, what really impressed me in Paris was the Musée du Louvre, the national art museum of France. I'd heard on the television that it was one of the largest palaces in the world, and I visited it five days in a row, breaking off from the regular scheduled bus tour of France.

It still wasn't enough time to see everything: words couldn't adequately capture the treasure within those walls. I was so excited that I phoned Jessie to tell her.

"It's the most outstanding collection of art in the world," she said. "It's a test for all tourists. If you go to Europe and don't see the Louvre, you're an ignoramus. If you spent as much time in a four week holiday there as you have, I guess you deserve an A plus."

In Rome, the tour group was made up of older Argentineans, and no-one spoke much English. The city struck me as both romantic and neglected. According to Jessie, the Italians paid so much in taxes, yet couldn't keep the streets clean. It seemed odd. There also appeared to be a sense of chaos in the marketplaces, and I sometimes felt unsafe. The first day, I wore snug black dress-pants and a cotton tight-fitting top with no brassiere while touring the city–it was baking hot. The men whistled and catcalled me all day. What they said was likely crude. I felt mostly revulsion, or even danger, especially after several men patted my bottom. It seemed a planet away from America, but I must admit there was an undercurrent of thrill at realizing my own desirability: when I was safely in my room, I was surprised to find a smile on my face, even though the attention had scared me. The next day, my hemline went down and my bustline up, and if the older woman in my group had thought me a tart, they soon changed their tune.

Many of the tourist sites were ruins, and perhaps it was the American in me, but I thought they should be restored to their original luster: inside the Coliseum, they could have built a wall with photographs of the old ruins, and restore the site to its original prestige like at the time of Emperor Vespasian.

In Italy, I stayed with the tour schedule, and visited Florence and Venice by bus.

In Berlin, I was determined to see two things: the Wall, and the Reichstag. I bought a memento for Jessie at a shop near Checkpoint Charlie. It was a handcrafted frieze of East Berliners gathered at the Brandenburg Gate, just inside the wall. They were shouting something. Around the oval rim were the words: 'Open the gate! Open the gate!'

In Moscow, I had my picture taken in the rain beside a handsome guard in the stately Red Square. I saw the Great Kremlin Palace, the Metro, and Arbat Street, and had an evening out at the Bolshoi Theater, watching Spartacus.

Before I traveled to Madrid, I spent three days in Biarritz, which was a part of French Basque in southwestern France on the Bay of Biscay. It was a small fishing village long ago, since transformed into an elegant resort town with a sandy beach. I drank white wine in the evenings and sunned during the day.

I toured Spain with a group of older couples from Switzerland. On our first morning in Madrid, on the grounds of the Palacio Real in the spectacular Sabatini Gardens, I met a tall, thin boy with long, dark hair who gardened there.

"You are from New York City?" he asked in perfect English.

I looked him over and wondered if he was interested in me.

"Duluth," I replied. "Chicago, the windy city."

He offered his hand and introduced himself as Roberto.

"Would you like to see the Plaza de Cibeles this afternoon?" he asked. He had eyes that sparkled like Paul Williams'. I nodded, perhaps a little too tentatively. "Would you like to see a bullfight?" I smiled, but was coy about this as well. "What about a soccer game? In Madrid, it's worse than bullfighting." I laughed and shook my head. "Would you like to see calle Mayor, and downtown? Perhaps after, something in the evening, like Gypsy places? I'll take you to Gran Via. I know some patios on the roofs with a view, where we can get a fabulous meal with a superb bottle of white wine."

"When do you get off?"

"In an hour, less." He bent on one knee. "Will you wait, please, señorita?"

I giggled like a schoolgirl. "I'll wait one hour."

We decided where we would meet, and he was waiting for me when I arrived. This should have made me more confident, but it made me nervous instead. He drove a scooter; where we went and how we made it, I had no idea. He drove like a crazy man, and I hugged him tight all the way.

Eventually, we turned onto the Puerta del Sol, the main east-west route through the old city to the Calle de Alcaláį. If we hadn't had a scooter, we might have been stuck there the whole afternoon: traffic seemed completely bogged down.

A few more blocks west took us to nearby Puerta de Alcalás and the Plaza de Cibeles. It is named after a statue of Cybele, the Roman goddess of nature. King Charles III placed the statue at the plaza, which was regarded as the main entrance to Madrid. Now it was home to an immense central post office. Afterwards, we sped downtown.

Good to his word, Roberto took me to supper on a rooftop patio. We ate calamari, octopus, oysters, mussels, and other seafood, with fresh bread and a bottle of white wine that I thought was delicious. By the end of supper, we were making regular eye contact and often touching one another with open affection.

He was an only child who lived with his mother in an apartment, and considered himself, at seventeen, to be extremely lucky to have a summer job– the unemployment rate was over fifteen percent in Spain. My heart fell a little when I heard how young he was, but reconsidering it, it didn't seem worth worrying. He had been respectful, and hadn't bragged about himself to make any impression on me. He even offered to pay the bill, but I insisted. He looked disappointed at this turn of events. He was concerned that he wasn't going to get lucky–I could see it in his eyes. It's a disquieting aspect that I'd noticed about men: when they are on the make, they went to any lengths to please a woman who, if not for her sex, they might never have given a second thought.

Roberto took me on his scooter to a Gypsy place where they played authentic flamenco music while a group of six dancers did the accompanying dance. It was improvised, yet seemed choreographed, and was exotic and downright inspiring. We drank another bottle of wine before he asked me to come home with him.

"What about your mother?" I asked.

"I have my own room," he said–rather calmly, I thought. I was a twenty-year-old virgin who sat with a seventeen year old pro, but he was attractive and his body was like that of Adonis. Besides, maybe he just hid his nervousness well.

"You can take me home now," I said.

He frowned. "At least let me pay." I shrugged, and after settling the bill, he drove me down Maria de Molina past the Alcaláį Gate to the Hotel Villa on Paseo de la Castellana. He got off his scooter and held me tightly in his arms, kissing me on the mouth. I kissed him back. I had no experience to be any judge, but I thought he was a good kisser.

"Let me come up," he pleaded softly. I took his hand and brought him to my room. We began kissing at once, and soon we were both naked. His tool stood up like a horn from his hips, reaching past his bellybutton. It was much larger than Paul Williams', Paul's being the only one I had to compare it with. His skin was smooth and hairless, except for his head and pubic hair.

"You're beautiful," he whispered as we lay together on the bed. I was surprised that I felt little tension, and no shame. In fact, I was rather relaxed. My body image had improved with the curve of my hips and the size of my breasts as I had reached twenty. I gave myself over to him freely, and felt happy.

He was as attractive with his clothes off as he had been with them on, nor did he try to rush me. He smelled good as well. Perhaps I had just the correct amount of numbness from the wine, so that his fingers below neither hurt nor tickled but sent waves of pleasure through me, and I shuddered all over when he licked me. I watched rather calmly as he put on a condom. Then he put his tool inside of me. It wasn't as bad as what I'd heard it made out to be by Ingrid and other girls who talked about doing it for the first time. Soon he kissed me on the mouth.

"Open your legs wider," he whispered in a desperate voice, and pumped his hips up and down against me. I held onto him at the waist, and in a minute, he moaned in relief.

He lay beside me until we started kissing again. "I should go and wash the blood off," I whispered.

"Not if it doesn't hurt," he returned with an even softer voice.

There wasn't much blood anyway. We did it again and we didn't stop kissing and petting all night, not even to get a drink of water or to pee. I couldn't imagine how sore I was going to be when I woke up, but I closed my eyes and slept solidly for eight hours.

When I did awake, he was gone. He left me a note, which I read in the bright sunlight which was streaming through my window: "Dear Natalie, Thank you for what I know will be one of the best days and nights of my life. Have a good trip back home. I love you, Roberto."

I had a flight to London in the afternoon, and the next day, I returned home. In the weeks ahead, I planned to move in with Jessie. I remember that I wasn't sore that day or the next, only mystified at my own behavior and my emotions.

On the plane I read Little, Big by John Crowley, a book about elves living inside a mansion where reality lay mostly hidden from its human inhabitants. I was brought up in a house like that.

As soon as I arrived home, I phoned Jessie and told her about Roberto.

"Sounds nice," she said. "When are you moving in?"

"How soon can I?"

"Next week will be fine. Be generous with your time these next days–you won't ever be back home on a permanent basis. Cathy may feel some bitterness about it, now that it has come time to move on. You understand, my kettle of fish?"

"Perfectly," I answered.

Mom was to start her new career in September. She had finished all the examinations, and was just waiting for the final results. However, no question was left as to what those would be. Her marks all through had been what her friend Pace Kunhardt had called exceptional.

I spent all day Thursday and Friday with her, shopping, preparing meals for Dad and Ingrid, and cleaning the house. On Saturday, August 25, we had a small, all-girl party for Ingrid's seventeenth birthday.

I bought her three books by Stephen King, including The Dead Zone, and three Danielle Steel's books, including Thurston House and Full Circle. Everybody else bought her clothes. I also got her a cassette, Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen.

I remember that Sunday being stupefied by the most melancholy feeling, a homesickness like I had never felt before. I loved my parents, and the memories of the old Ruckert mansion filled me with childhood nostalgia. I was in the midst of packing, and near tears, when Mom and Dad came in and sat on my bed.

Vesey was in the middle of a storm. Thunder, lightening, and waves of rain came in a downpour, hitting the side of the house with a rush.

"What will we do with all the extra space?" Dad said, teasing me as rain pelted the window.

Recently, Dad had taken to spending an hour daily downstairs, using a portable gymnasium that he had purchased over the television through an infomercial. His upper body had taken on mass and definition, and with his trim beard, shining blue eyes, and genuine smile, he often reminded me of Chuck Norris.

"Having trouble packing, love?" Mom asked.

"I'm sad."

"Over what?" she asked.

"Just leaving."

"We'll be here, and we'll save your room," she said. "After all of these years together in this trouble-free home, we never want it to end. We're happy, and truthfully, you've been the best daughter in the whole world. That's what we came to tell you today. We couldn't have done it without you, nor would we have been so proud or happy as we are."

"I'd say we would have gone insane without you," Dad said, "but to be honest, you were raised by a half-mad mother and a half-crazed grandmother. Lucky for you, I kept my wits about me."

"I read once that there's time in someone's life for two or three career changes," Mom said, after kissing him and tousling his hair. "After what I've gone through, I know it isn't true."

"I love you, pumpkin," Dad said, hugging me.

"You're what we've always needed," Mom added, kissing me. "Perhaps we forgot to tell you?"

"You've told me before," I said, in tears, "but I appreciate when you say it." We hugged again, and Ingrid came in.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing, princess," Dad said. "We're just making sure that Nat gets her fair share of abuse." Ingrid came over and caressed my face with her palm; she was already crying.

"You're the best sister." We hugged and cried some more.

"There's something that I've always wanted to ask you," I said to Mom when Dad and Ingrid had left. "It's not in dispute that Jessie's a genius, but how could she marry a racist and a womanizer, like you describe Grandpa Cobble?"

"He psychologically abused her, too," Mom said. "I was there. I remember it well. You can imagine how much I bore the brunt of her fury and unhappiness. He cheated on her awfully. He wasn't a bright man, I'll tell you that, but he was handsome when he was young. I've thought about what you're asking before. It's a different generation now. She made a mistake and got pregnant. Back then, that problem damned a woman for life. But even today, a woman can be hoodwinked by a possessive man who has a relationship with her and then claims squatter's rights. Possessive men aren't just chauvinistic, they're racist and violent. They believe in male power and blood, heredity; they're whiter than white, blacker than black. Sometimes they kill their wives, if they're unstable. That's why I found a man like your Dad. I became determined never to have anything to do with a man like my father. He was electric, dangerous, and daring. When they're young, men like him are full of sexual prowess, but they're only fit for war, not for nesting. Actually–ironically, if Dad were alive, I think I'd thank him. He became such a bad prototype that I made sure to get involved with his opposite. I've been happy ever since."

"When you speak about Pace, are you just teasing Dad?"

"Pace is nice, but he can't compare with your dad. It's only that he's sponsored me through my whole career in homicide, and mostly because of this, I like him. Plus, he's got a good sense of humor. Never underestimate that."

"He's ambitious and spontaneous. It's just what Jessie would like."

"Secretly, Jessie approves of your dad, as you well know. She realizes that we have been in love and happy all these years. I just bait your dad about Pace. It keeps him on his toes. Anyway, now that I've become a detective, Dad and I are both religious in the same way."

She gave a little laugh, and I laughed too. "He's the rock on whom you've built your church," I said.

"Cute, missy-pie. Come on, I'll help you down to the car with your things."

I drove my Mercedes in the rain to Duluth, listening to Joan Armatrading on tape. When I arrived, I felt much better.

Chapter Six

Two days later, Mom phoned me with news: Stacy Williams had confessed to Uncle Gordon his culpability for the murder of Kelly Williams. The whole town was talking about it. That day, I also made up my mind to start the huge A History of Philosophy, and not to pick any other book up until I was done. The Image Edition of the work was about fifty thousand pages, so this was no mean feat.

My first official job at B&R was double-checking the fiscal audit report for the whole company for the previous year, a work in size comparable to Coppelston's. And so in September of 1984, I found myself in a zany swing between a Catholic philosopher and a Protestant balance sheet. It was a surreal experience, especially since I was living with Jessie, who every morning concentrated on business, and every evening focused on life.

It was hard to believe, but the audit review took me until March of 1985.

Jessie started me at thirty thousand dollars annually, but when I handed in my final report, I immediately received a ten thousand dollar increase. I guess that was her way of saying I had done a good job, but of the report itself, I never heard another word. I offered to pay rent, but Jessie wouldn't hear of it. Consequently, most of my money went into saving accounts.

My next task at Basle's was much more of a challenge. Again, I had to do a fiscal audit on the whole company–but this time, it was an actual one, and it would require traveling to the real Twin Cities: Chicago and New York City.

By the time I started it, in mid April one and a half years later, I was finished A History of Philosophy. By way of a reading holiday, I bought four Sir Arthur Conan Doyle books: The Hounds of the Baskervilles, His Last Bow, A Study in Scarlet, and The Adventure of Sherlock Homes; three of Alexandre Dumas': The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Man in the Iron Mask; and two of Ellery Queen's: The Four of Hearts and Halfway House.

Dad phoned me near the end of the summer to tell me that John Williams was working at a high school located between University of St. Thomas and the College of St. Catherine in East St. Paul.

"He's teaching English literature to the twelfth grade, and is still single," he said. Dad also told me that the school, Our Lady of Peace Catholic Secondary High School, was quite reputable.

I understood the implication. Since I was occasionally traveling to the Twin Cities, I could bump into him somewhere–and from there, start a relationship. Dad had guessed correctly that I still had a crush on him, so it was tempting, but I didn't know if John liked me in that way.

As it turned out, I never did dig up the courage.

"Things like that are just too risky," Jessie said, after I told her about Dad's message without giving away any details about who it was. "Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. Planning romance is like predicting the stock market. You're still young and pretty; there's plenty of time yet to make a fool of yourself. Besides, only desperate women go chasing men. Learn to live without them, you'll be happier."

If Jessie suspected who it was, she didn't let on. I couldn't imagine what she would have said if she'd heard. I didn't think I agreed with her about the last part, either. Just because you were lonely, didn't mean you were hard up.

I did see John Williams over Christmas of that year at a house party in Vesey. It was hosted by Danny Clayton, an old friend of Paul's who was becoming rich in Hibbing selling home computers. He was an ordinary-looking fellow, married to an older woman of some merit. At least, I thought so. She was a pretty businesswoman who ran two successful boutiques, Buttons and Bathrooms, in St. Louis County.

Mom didn't like her; I thought the woman had a thing for Dad. I discounted it as jealousy. Her name was Sara.

I went with Ingrid, who was seeing an old friend and classmate of Paul's, Arthur Douglas. She was to meet him at the party. He was an attractive sort, the Paul Williams type: popular by looks alone, five foot ten inches high, jet black hair, clear green eyes, clean-shaven face, and a diamond stud in his ear. He drank too much, and I hoped Ingrid would break it off soon. She shed too many tears on Arthur's no-shows, drunkenness, and insensitivity. I didn't like the sound of it at all.

As Jessie never tired of saying when talking about romantic love, "It's all vanity!"

When I saw John, I immediately went over and said hello. He was talking to Paul at the time, who shook my hand and was kind enough to leave us alone.

"There's a lot of old faces here," John said in a low voice. "I think most of them aren't that happy about having the Williams brothers around."

"Why is that?" I asked naively.

"We're famous in St. Louis County for the wrong reason," he said. I nodded sympathetically. "Makes me wonder if I should show my face in town at all," he added, laughing sadly as though remembering something. "This is totally how things go now. There's this teacher-assistant-psychologist-whatever in St. Paul, I asked her out to dinner. She's a Catholic, as am I, same age, and interested in English literature–go figure, everything on the positive column. Her name's Melita. She's not as pretty as you, but she's fairly attractive."

I was thrilled to hear that he thought I was pretty.

"She has a buoyant personality," he continued, "not especially opinionated, intellectually independent. As you can see, she's struck a delicate balance. I asked her out after she dropped me several hints. I took her to The Cedars, a turn-of-the-century mansion converted to deliver intimate surroundings in a rather rustic setting. It's one of the classiest places in St. Paul, with soft music, candlelight, and individual fireplaces near each table. It was an expensive date, but I was trying hard."

He stopped to see what impression he was having and I smiled warmly, encouraging him to go on.

"She's got this classic fifties look," he continued, "and she's modest, so I was hoping she was old-fashioned and would appreciate everything I was doing. She dressed up, and had her hair in waves up to a peak held together with long silver pins. It looked pretty cool. She's a blue-eyed, blonde-haired, pretty woman with an almost retrograde look, which sort of said, 'Don't deceive yourself, it isn't this simple.'"

I laughed. "You're cute."

"Here's another thing," he added. "She's supplying for the Board, and so I figured that word about the murderous Stacy Williams hadn't reached her ears yet. In fact, I knew it; she wouldn't have been sitting across from me if it had. As a bonus, she wasn't a 'real' teacher either, but one of the school's medical caregivers who travels the district. I had my fingers crossed. Before our date, she was telling me about her parents; they live in St. Paul in the same house in which Melita was raised. She has a brother and a sister and her parents have been married almost thirty years. Get the picture?"

I laughed again. My old feelings for him were flooding back, and I felt like hugging him.

"To make a long story short, her father's in banking, and her brother Sam is a successful businessman. He owns upgraded snooker clubs in Milwaukee. Her sister, Helen, is her best friend. Get this. She lives in New York City, and dances with the National Ballet. Can you believe it? Melita has traveled there many times with her parents to see her. They've even thought of moving to New York City just to be with her. Her friends at the ballet are 'amazing' and they call her 'Helen of St. Paul.' Isn't that splendid? Her mom is a 'living saint' whose helps run a shelter for the homeless. As she went on and on, I was getting more and more nervous. I was thinking, 'Thwarted at every turn,' or 'I've struck out for sure.' 'You're telling me there's not one dark secret in your whole family?' I asked, in fruitless desperation."

Again I laughed, this time rubbing his arm with affection before he continued.

"Her father preaches the word of the Lord in church on Sunday," he said. "She went on to tell me that she's looking for a partner who she can share a life in Jesus with, and who will raise their children as Christians. To her parents, the Bible is the guide for life. Her brother and sister feel the same way. Her dad is a loving, caring, astonishing person, her mother too–not holier than thou, though, she assured me."

Perhaps I shouldn't have laughed, but it was comical how he was complaining and telling a joke at the same time.

"I realized how her story stacked up against betrayal, adultery, and murder," he continued with a low voice, "I told her about Paul, that he's a wonderful guy, and then I told her that my parents are both dead. She said she was sorry, and then I felt ashamed and said a little prayer for some courage. 'That's not the truth," I said at length, turning red. 'Only my mom is dead. My father is in prison for her murder.'

"For five minutes, not a word came from her lips. I was sitting there, just dying. By then, the meal was cold. 'Would you excuse me?' she said at length. I figured she was heading for the washroom to barf or something, but I never saw her again."

I laughed, thinking he was joking. "What?" I asked after a moment. "She didn't come back to thank you for dinner or anything?" He nodded. "How rude."

"I may not show it around you," John said, "but I'm a tad shy with women, yet I had met her on my own. From the beginning, I knew that she would stay around–so long as I never told her the truth. But if I lied, she would look into my eyes and know it too. The world has never created such a poor liar as me. It was as if Norman Rockwell had manufactured her family. Damn! Everyone knows that the bad blood of the father might flow through the veins of the sons. I don't blame her, really."

I could see that all his humor was touched with sadness. I wanted to cheer him up.

The truth was, I knew even then that I loved him and had for some time, even from the very first time I met him–but I had this nagging voice, my mother's voice, cautioning me that it wasn't the right time for him. I was completely sober, and heeded that voice. I reached over and kissed him on the mouth, a kiss which should have left no doubt about my intentions toward him. This seemed to knock him out of his reverie.

"I leave for Duluth early tomorrow morning," I said. "I have to go now. It's been nice talking to you. Have they set the court date for your Dad's sentencing?"

"February 21st." He made to say something else, but I turned and left. If I had stayed with him one more second, I would have lost my self control.

After the holidays, I got the flu and was sick for two weeks. I was only happy that Jessie didn't get it. I thought I was going to die; I'd never been so sick in my life, and that illness gave me a rude awakening. I spent a whole sixteen hours dry heaving after being sick the day before. I was so nauseated that even water sat horribly in my stomach. Then I slept in a feverish haze for days. Jessie and Diane nursed me.

When I felt better, I returned to the Basle Building, and within two days was back to my regular routine.

I visited Vesey for the sentencing, and accompanied Mom. She wore a bright red business suit, and I understood why. She wanted to be noticed, to remind everybody that she was the one who had originally figured it out. Judge Ian Morrison sent kind looks our way several times during the procedure.

Uncle Gordon sat beside Mom. Baxter Lambertolios was still representing Stacy Williams. Dave Zacroix sat near John Williams, who, unlike his brother was at the back: to make eye contact with John, I would have had to turn around. Paul Williams sat directly behind his father, and they conversed several times. Liz Heinrich was still the St. Louis County prosecutor, but Mom had told me they were there only as a formality, and were not pressing any issues.

"The accused will rise and face the bench," Collin, the court clerk, announced.

Stacy Williams rose with his lawyer, who dwarfed him. Stacy was in a suit, and was now clean shaven. But the most important difference in his appearance from the streets of Duluth where we'd seen him last in September of `83 was that his eyes had returned to life. He looked old, but surprisingly better; the fervent, evil aspect had fled him, as though it was true that the eyes were windows to the soul. "Do you want to read a statement?" the judge asked.

"Yes, your Honor," Baxter Lambertolios said. "Stacy will speak. It should take a half hour or so."

"Are you ready?" He nodded. "Then let's go."

Stacy took a sip of water and looked down at his prepared notes. "Your Honor. I am manifestly guilty of the crime of which I was formerly accused, which you dismissed for lack of evidence. At 11:00 pm on the night in question, Tuesday, May 21, 1979, I drove at high speed behind my wife's Chevy. The approaching bluff plummeted straight down on my left side. Many times when we'd come this way in our separate cars, I had imagined running her off of the bluffs. The thought thrilled me. I would be free for the first time in two decades, I had thought to myself. That night I had an alibi: no-one knew we were together. This increased the temptation. She had strayed with Kent, but that didn't really even count–I myself had cheated on her so many times. She still thought that I loved her, even as she ran to Kent's arms. I remember thinking those thoughts that night.

'I often stopped over at The Jefferson Motel, and that night, Kelly had driven down unexpectedly from Ely where she had been on a stopover at her mother's. She had hoped to catch me with some woman to relieve her own guilt, I guess, or at least that's what I was thinking. Kelly's own mother, according to what Kelly had just told me that night, believed that she was traveling straight home from Ely. I knew that our sons, friends, business associates, and most importantly, Kelly's mother, thought I was on a flyover in Minneapolis-St. Paul by way of Duluth. I knew that I might never have such an opportunity again.

'The second sign came up: the one that says, DANGER! ROUGH ROAD. I began to maneuver my Plymouth Grand Fury close to her on Ridgeway Road. I looked ahead for any oncoming lights. A clear vista existed for a mile ahead, but it lay in darkness; no cars came. I had traveled that route hundreds of nights, fantasizing about her death. I wanted to commit the perfect murder. The road began to narrow. I thought back through the years of our marriage."

At that point, Stacy stopped to take another sip of water, and to dry his eyes. He had been crying for the last minute. I chanced a quick look back at John, but he had left.

"I thought back through the years of loneliness and unhappiness," Stacy continued. "I watched the shadowy outline of Kelly's head in front of me, and the way she held her cigarette as she drove. I put my foot to the floor and accelerated almost at a jump, pulling out on the road beside her. I didn't turn my head to look at her. When I was three quarters of the way past her, I took a sharp turn inwards toward the embankment, and slammed on the brakes. She responded with a violent swing to the left and became airborne, flying off the cliff and plummeting into the gorge.

'When I stepped out of the car, I saw how close I had come to going over myself. My right front tire hung off the road. I stared then into the darkness; the eerie silence of the cliff-side spooked me. I realized that the tall pines below had broken her fall–but then, I saw a thing that I hadn't at all counted on: a flame, followed by a cry for help. 'It's her, you demon!' I began to cry out. 'Save her!' I stepped to the edge and a brilliant explosion occurred, followed by a sudden inferno inside the Malibu. This lasted a minute or so. Soon the gorge was swallowed up by the darkness once again, and the eerie silence returned. 'What have I done?' I moaned. I remember falling to my knees, and for some time, crying."

He stopped again to catch his breath and wipe his eyes further. "Then I rose and looked over the side," he continued, with a tremble in his voice. "At first, I fooled myself. I said I hadn't meant to do it; it had happened by accident, I had let my imagination get away on me. I watched the smoke curl in a pitch-black spiral upwards through the trees. The smell of it sickened me. I knew then that I had reached the point of no return. No matter what the ministers preach, there is no mercy from God for doing something like this, even if it was an accident. I was tempted to climb down the steep embankment to see if I could do anything, but even in broad daylight, it offers enough of a challenge. I got into my car and backed it out to a secure spot on the road. I got out again and shuffled my feet over the tire tracks in the glow of the headlights until they were smoothed out as much as possible. Then I stared down the gloomy escarpment for the last time. I could no longer see the crash site. I turned the car around. I had no intention of going home to Vesey, but instead sped away in the opposite direction, to Duluth. I stayed at The Evening Star, just as I had testified, but of course, I had been at The Jefferson Motel with Kelly that night as well. We had made out and I had even told her that I loved her, but no-one had seen us."

Again he had to take a break, and choked off his tears. "I began to think of it as an accident. I tried to fool myself, even though since the moment I had done it, I had been unhappy. I realized that they might not find her body at all. I had no life insurance coming from her death, which I knew would deflect suspicion away from me. I had a small mortgage death benefit, but that meant nothing–almost every homeowner has that. I thought it would feel like freedom, but it felt like my personal destruction. I thought my sons would never suspect me, but they were the first ones besides Cathy Ruckert to suspect. I thought I was clever; I convinced Baxter of my innocence so that he would defend me with all his heart. I thought I could be cool. I thought I didn't believe in God."

He stopped for a full twenty seconds before continuing. "Your Honor, don't take my words of contrition to heart. I ask for the maximum punishment, and still that won't be sufficient. I ask for my sons' forgiveness for taking away their mother, and she was a good mother. I beg society to mete out its penalty without consideration for me, just as I so carelessly took the life of my wife."

When he finished, I was surprised to find myself wiping my eyes. I frowned at myself, anxious to leave the court. The judge sentenced him ten years to life in Saint Louis County Prison and Correctional Services, a minimum security facility outside of Duluth. Mom and I didn't talk about it afterwards, and that night, ahead of my plans, I sped to Duluth so that I could be with Jessie.

"Tell me again, why were you there?" she asked suspiciously when I told her the story. I shrugged and she gave me one of her classic looks, which said, 'I'm watching you.' I could see that she knew I had ulterior motives for being in the courtroom.

I decided that it wasn't a good time to tell her about John Williams, who I had decided to marry. I knew I could pick my time to go after him: the story that he told me at the party was true, and he was at a unique disadvantage in finding a suitable mate.

That night, I sat up reading Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham, one of the best books I ever read.

On the last weekend in March, Jessie went to Vesey without me. I found this a strange turn of events, since it was a two-day overnight trip, and she had planned to pick me up for work first thing Monday morning. My Mercedes had been sold and Jessie hadn't received her new one yet, so I needed a ride until she received it. I was to get the previous year's model.

I had attended a party in Duluth Saturday night, and she knew this. I was nervous that she suspected my designs on John Williams. She was making the condo available by staying in Vesey, so that I might feel free to drag some unwitting specimen home for experimentation. That way I would get over my "crush." That is how Jessie would have looked at it.

I stood out in the cold dampness that Monday morning, maybe at seven a.m., watching the slow sprinkle of snowflakes floating to the ground, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, stamping my feet, and waiting for Jessie and Diane to come. For the whole month, Duluth had been in the clutches of snow and slush.

Across the street was a small park, and from my vantage point on the steps of the condominium at Superior and Weldment, I could see the snow-covered statue of the French explorer Sieur Damel Graysolan du Luth. Jessie often said that he had spent too much time in the forests, shooting those Indians whom he couldn't exploit. I never learned the truth of this accusation; Jessie often used hyperbole in her discussions, so one had to always double check what was truth and what was exaggeration.

That day, I wore a long black coat. Like many of my work clothes, Jessie and Diane had picked it out. As usual, I wore my hair in a long braided ponytail, and had on no makeup except a little blush–I was quite pale otherwise.

With clumps of snow scattered throughout the city's dull gray landscape, Duluth seemed deserted this early. I looked down to check if my boots were staying dry. I was used to the early mornings; Jessie liked to be first one in the office and the last one out. She dropped everything at a call and flew anywhere in the world in a crisis, and expected the same of me and Diane, her disciples. I never grew tired of her company. It was stimulating, always new, and a total intellectual experience as well as a challenge. Even the condo, as an expression of her genius, existed as though in a world apart. She had a touch of the bunker mentality (in an elitist sort of way)–I won't deny it–and there were always enemies at the gate, if not literally, then at least in Jessie's mind.

"Finally," I whispered to myself when I saw Jessie's car.

"How did your evening go?" she asked when I'd buckled in. Her hair was up in short, smart waves, pulled back slightly.

"Okay," I said. "You had a perm done. Hi, Di."

Di nodded. "Meet anyone at the party?" Jessie asked.

"Two cute guys had this debate in the kitchen about Russia. It was intense. What do you think of Glasnost?"

"What? At a party?" I shrugged, and she reached over and squeezed my hand. "Your mother was right all along about you," she added.

"How's that?"

"Never mind, my kettle of fish, all in good time. Glasnost? Like I've told you before, Communism is Catholicism translated directly into politics. The utter futility of altruism condemns them both, but don't ever say that in public." She took her purse and placed her slim gray leather gloves inside of it. "In the US, we destroyed our working values with state-run welfare–but in Russia, they destroyed their entire culture with the total state. Gorbachev's Glasnost, therefore, is a frail attempt at a resurrection of the dead."

Diane and I both laughed. "Jessie, you say the damnedest things," Di said from the driver's seat.

"The party was at Kirk Byrans," I said, "you know, that friend of mine I told you who likes men. One guy there, I can't remember his name, maintained that Perestroika is Russia's attempt at pluralistic democracy, and that within a decade, it would be part of the West."

"Well, isn't that youthful. Was he cute?"

"He's okay, I guess. Well, he's not really available. I've heard he's gay too."

"What about the other one?"

"He had bad acne and wore ugly glasses, but he seemed nice enough, I guess."

"They always say that the Russians want to be like Americans," Jessie said. "I'm not sure that's a wise idea–we are probably the most violent society in the West, at least during peace-time. Glasnost and Perestroika are something important, but not for the business world. From the beginning, the democratic vote produced capitalism, not the other way around. As I keep reiterating to you, this subtle distinction is of the utmost importance. I know Japanese history better than that of Russian. The Japanese are good capitalists. Their intellectuals never betrayed them with a religion of resentment. They even have the rule of law down fairly well in some areas, although it is skewed by their particular history, as is law everywhere. The Samurai's severe code of conduct left them with many problems, and they are many years from a full pluralistic democracy, but they will achieve it before Russia. Toleration for real differences, that is, the English way–the Protestant way–takes many decades to achieve, perhaps centuries. Japan may succeed in becoming a tolerant nation which fully embraces democracy, but right now it promotes a society of individualists who conform."

We both laughed again.

"It won't happen in my lifetime," she continued, "and as for Russia, don't let yourself be fooled. We are safer, perhaps, from nuclear war now that they are casting off an insipid and parasitical philosophy, but Russia isn't a magically transformed society. They're in grave trouble, more so every day. They have no work ethic and no soul. The Cold War may be winding down, but for them, they must still go through the lonely, poor, brutal years of industrial revolution, just as South Korea is doing: low wages, infrastructure problems, and little public welfare for the poor and downtrodden. Look at England, France, or America. For generations they paid as they went; no black-hearted dictatorial ideology like Fascism poisoned their blood. Sure, there were parasites, racists, and robber barons; favor inevitably falls on some groups and entirely passes over others, sometimes with no apparent reason. However, generation to generation, they gave to the next era greater wealth than the one which had preceded it. They gave what they took out themselves. As individuals, our forefathers weren't afraid to stand alone; they weren't afraid to work, and work hard. Now, we give way more to our own inconsiderate generation, the elite, selfish socialists, decadent and afraid of hard work. They steal from the future by watering down money or by going into debt. Marx, like Christ before him, has put the whole world out of focus. Glasnost and Perestroika are doing to Communism what Thomism and rationalism did to Christianity. Did I mention to you the utter futility of altruism?"

We laughed yet again.

"Give out to others from love only, Nat," she proceeded, "value for value, from love, admiration, merit or raw ability. Pity is okay, at least in private–but remember, in a political forum, pity for some means that others are likely going to be forced by society to pay for whatever it is that is going to be rectified. When a democratic society uses force to make its citizens behave generously, this is no more than a soft-feely form of slavery—human sacrifice. Soviet Russia is an example of an undemocratic form, but slavery is slavery whether enforced with a gun or a smile. As I have taught you, freedom of thought means freedom of religion. Freedom of religion means freedom to bow before what altar you have chosen. Economic, ideological, and religious freedoms are all on the same plane. You have never been seduced by the Ruckert's good, down-home Sally-Anne charity. You see clearly whom it serves, and it isn't just the poor. I hope you won't become interested in the malevolent, ugly one of Karl Marx. He is the evil genius of resentment."

"The Ruckerts are just kind-hearted," I said in their defense.

"They are fools who would sell the farm to feed the farmhands. This kind of hypocrisy, masked as human benevolence, is bad enough–but Marxism preaches the absolute equality of means and ends, and they mean it violently so. However, they also mystify it, even suggesting in their literature that selflessness is the only true morality. In truth, it's no morality at all. If one is charitable because one is obliged inside of a moral duty, it's because one wants to be moral. This is the selfish personal desire to be good. For instance, I want to be rich. With monetary power, I can fight for my dreams. I also want to be moral. With moral power, I can fight for my dreams on a higher level. To be unselfish, in either case, is an illusion. If I give out of generosity, from a desire to be generous, I don't act unselfishly. If I give out of duty, and force myself against my selfish desires, I betray my real true feelings and so lose my moral purity. If I'm forced to give to others by religious or political compulsion, it has nothing to do with my own free moral choice. There: I think I have covered all the bases. Anyway you slice it, Marxism is ludicrous, and so is religion."

We pulled up at the Basle Building and parked the car in Jessie's underground parking spot. A reserved table at the back of the Pickle Brine had been readied for us, and as usual, the restaurant remained relatively deserted at that time of morning. It opened its doors at six a.m., and its first customers were just straggling in. I knew that by eight, it would be busy. I removed my coat. I was wearing an olive-green business suit that Jessie had just recently purchased for me, and which she had asked me to wear that day.

I knew that after Jessie passed through the doors of her office, any discussion not about business would be dead in the water. Jessie might appear gaunt, sometimes even fierce, but to me, her facial features held integrity. She intimidated many who met her, but this made me admire her even more.

"Nat, Jessie's explanation of Russia is rare," Diane said after coffee had been served. "I think what is happening in Russia is good, and so does the rest of the West. Now, here is your agenda today. We all fly out at noon. The Mayor of St. Paul will be at the meeting, as will state representatives from Wisconsin and Minnesota. I'll go ahead to the hotel to see that we are looked after and then come back. We fly out to New York City at six o'clock the next morning."

Dorothy, our regular waitress, stepped up to the table and served our breakfast. "Before we start talking shop," I said, "can I ask you one more question?" Jessie nodded. "You call yourself an atheist, but Dad says you don't believe in God because my grandfather behaved cruelly and used the Bible to oppress you."

Jessie laughed. "Christian said that?"

"Those weren't his exact words," I said.

"For a young woman to pick a possessive man for a husband is the worst mistake," Jessie said, "and I made it. These types of men are sometimes charismatic in their twenties. I found no exception with Ed Cobble. I tried to have a loving relationship with him, but the war we fought had no end. Your granddad didn't beat me, if that's what you're asking. He abused me verbally–he preached about God and railed against me, against women, and against minorities, especially blacks. I wanted to run my dad's business against his wishes. One day he threw the Bible at me–I mean literally. Looking back at that strange event, it seems laughable. By the time I got up the nerve to leave him, I also found the nerve to reject the whole idea of religion. Maybe I rejected the idea of patriarchy; male power and religion are intimately linked. However, I'm an atheist because there is no God, not because I think God abandoned me. There is no proof of God's existence, and that is the bottom line. The supernatural plane doesn't exist."

"Okay, time for shop," Diane said. We both turned our attention to her. "Did you know that some employee in our New York City branch told the press that we're working on an abortion pill?" she asked. "Now, I wonder where he got that idea."

Diane's sarcasm had been aimed directly at Jessie, who liked her own reputation of annoying the right-wing Christians, especially the Tele-Evangelists, whom she especially despised. Several times her name had even made it onto their television shows. Jessie considered this an accomplishment. To me, it contradicted one of Jessie's maxims: "Businesspeople should keep a low profile." But she seemed to make an exception for herself.

"You might not be happy to learn," Diane continued, "that The United Council of Christian Churches has promised a national boycott of our products if we don't promise to refrain from the research." She pulled a magazine out of her briefcase to show Jessie the specific article.

After reading it, Jessie looked up. "Who said that?"

"Brad Paul. He's a kook."

"I like him," Jessie said. "Make sure he's at our meeting tomorrow. I'll give him a few words to the wise." She looked over at me. "He's not a kook at all. He's a bright young man, he's single and handsome, and he's our Immuno-Medical President. How many employees does he have? Thirty people?"

Diane took her two hands and ran them through her short black hair. "He tried to get me to have sex with him at our Christmas party last year, like, just in one of the offices at the back on a desk or something. I don't know what he had in mind." We laughed.

"He's Nat's age," Di continued, "a little older."

Jessie looked over at me. "At least we know he's not gay," she said.

We laughed again.

"Is there somebody from The United Council of Christian Churches that we can meet with to reassure them?" Jessie asked.

"I can squeeze that in today, if you would care to." Diane answered.

"Arrange it today, sure, but leave it until later. If we are a decade away from producing the pill, as we were the last time that I checked, then there's no rush. We just have to assure them that it's nothing to worry about. It's nothing like the serious problem of the over-population of the entire world, which these jokers ignore on a daily basis." Diane nodded. "Remember," Jessie continued, "this trip to New York City is strictly for the financial report–and what's more, I don't want all our prima donnas to come to me to show off their robotic analysis machines and talk about the purchases of computers. They just want to advance their careers at our expense."

She stopped while Dorothy cleared the table and refilled our coffees.

"The good news is that Auto-Diagnostic Inc. has withdrawn their suit," Diane said, "and will accept our original offer."

"If this had hit the courts," Jessie said, "our legal fees would have exceeded half a million dollars this fiscal year. Our FDA costs alone will increase by ten percent. Our liability insurance is already over budget by ten thousand dollars annually. This is another problem with doing business in America. Everybody is litigation crazy! Somebody prematurely dies and when the family tries to get on the gravy train, the courts use the scatter gun approach. If the plaintiffs can't get the doctor, the nurse, the hospital, or anyone else in the health service chain, they'll sue us. People don't realize this reduces care for everyone, raises costs across the board, and only makes good jobs for lawyers."

"Here's one case I read about," Diane said. "This patient had been crippled during a routine operation by a drunk doctor. The doctor had falsely testified to the hospital about his liability insurance, and actually had none. Realizing what he's up against, the doctor packs up and leaves the country. The patient sues the nurses who were present during the operation, but they get together and collectively declare bankruptcy. He sues the hospital, but it goes insolvent and closes its doors. What do the lawyers do? Does the patient have them stop? No way. They sue the company who manufactured the operating table, and guess what? They win."

We laughed. "I have one like that," I said. "This young man, injured in a ski accident, sues the lodge. During the suit, the lodge goes bankrupt. So he sues the lift operators, and they flee, or declare bankruptcy, or something, I don't remember. Finally, he sues the ski-lift manufacturer and wins."

Jessie nodded and rose. "Off to the grind."

That day was one our the best, like a whirlwind.

In April, we traveled to New York City twice and Chicago three times from Duluth International Airport. I read Chesapeake by James A. Michener and Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell; while we were in flight, waiting for rides, or on the plane, it helped pass the time.

I received a letter from Paul Williams when I arrived back at the condo in the first week of May. I read it aloud to Jessie and Diane.

"Dear Natalie,

My father is truly repentant. He has sold his house and other possessions, and raised money that he has designated to charities or to different people in need. One such person is a young prostitute working in Duluth, Mary Hynes, who I believe you have heard about. He said he lied about her to police and got her in trouble. He has set aside five thousand dollars to compensate for the injury he has done her. He saw your tears in court, and thanks you for them."

Jessie and I traded glances. I could almost hear the gears turning in her head. I continued.

"He says it is more than he deserves. He has specifically asked that you find her for him, if you can bring yourself to do it. Her last know address in Duluth is in a rooming house located in the poorest part of downtown, on Ramon Street in a building called the Striebel. Her mother's address is 876 Malcombe Drive, Roseville, St. Paul. He hopes the money will get her off the streets. Carrie says, 'Hi,' as does my older brother, John. Let me know A.S.A.P.

Sincerely,

Paul."

"Life presents an incredible array of choices," Jessie said.

"But should I do it?" I asked.

"You've got no choice," Jessie said. "Besides, if you go to the police, I'll make a call for you. You'll track this Mary Hynes down in no time."

Chapter Seven

Jessie was right: the police gave us a current address and phone number a week later. I made an appointment, and met Mary Hynes in Coffee Time Donuts Shop downtown, not far from the Basle Building. I could have walked, but I took the car because it was raining. Although there was stress etched in the crow's feet around Mary's eyes, her youthful, rich black hair and angular face told me she was still a teenager: probably nineteen, maybe twenty. She wore braces on her otherwise perfectly white teeth, and the black, unhealthy look around the eyes that I had expected and the excessive makeup you see on street-girls weren't there. She wore a t-shirt and new blue jeans. She didn't look like a prostitute at all.

I shook her hand and wished I'd dressed more casually. After getting coffee, donuts, and introductions out of the way, I told her why I'd come and let her read the letter.

"I don't hook anymore," she said, "or do drugs. It's so ironic you've come today. It's been one year exactly since I stopped, on May 13, 1985."

"Was there a special reason?"

"You bet your backside."

I noticed that her fingers picked at the hangnails on her thumbs and her eyes flitted nervously.

"I was hitch-hiking outside of the town of Northland, Waupaca County, in Wisconsin," she said, "along Highway 45, northwest out of Appleton, one year ago today... I was about seventy-five miles southwest of Green Bay, and coming west to Minneapolis-St. Paul. I had been in Milwaukee working a spring fair. I had a dozen clients that weekend and most of them wanted really kinky stuff, so I made good bucks."

"What's kinky?" I asked out of curiosity, not knowing then where the conversation was going.

"One wanted anal. That's nothing, but you can double your price. One wanted me to scratch his back and draw blood with my long nails... well, they were long at the time... while he was doing it. That cost a c-note. It doesn't seem too big a request, but it's kind of disgusting. This one kid, damn, I think he was under sixteen, but fat and homely, he had me put the old index up his you-know-where, while giving him head. That was a hundred as well. One had brought his cell phone and talked to his girlfriend as he did it. That was a sixty or seventy dollar session. One gave me a golden shower... a hundred and twenty dollars."

I was trying to keep the repugnance off my face.

"I planned to stay with my mom for a few days," she continued, "and then come back to work in Duluth, a year ago exactly. I recall it like it was yesterday; it'll be the spookiest damned day of my life no matter how long I'll live, the scariest. It wasn't like today at all. It was a beautiful May day. The sun shone down, while I walked on the side of the road, hitch-hiking. The birds were landing on the pavement, chirping and flitting about. There was hardly any traffic. At length, a bright red Chevy pickup truck stopped. I had to step high up on extra large mud-tires to look in. The driver was a regular-looking guy who had a boyish appearance and grew his hair over his ears, but it wasn't too long either–not creepy or anything. His face and his whole character seemed plain and mild-mannered to me, agreeable. He was six feet high or more, and a hundred and fifty pounds. I asked him how far he was going, or something like that. He told me he was going up a bit on the highway. His voice had a high-pitched quality, as though he were effeminate. He was skinny, and dressed nice. I though he was gay, so I didn't think of him as a client, you know. I got in and relaxed.

"He was wearing a light brown t-shirt and an expensive pair of trousers. He asked me how old I was when he pulled his truck out onto the highway. 'Eighteen,' I answered. He barreled along about sixty-five miles per hour or so. Crammed between the seat and the window sat a bright yellow cooler. With one hand, I watched as he flipped the lid and pulled out a small eight-ounce glass bottle. He passed me a bottle: it was fruit punch with eight percent alcohol. I'd seen inside the cooler, and there were about fifty of those. I hadn't had anything to eat or drink since breakfast and it went down too good, if you know what I mean.

"He asked me my name and told me that his friends call him Long John. In minutes, he gave me another bottle and asked where I lived. I told him I was originally from Hibbing, about one hundred twenty miles away, and that I was headed to my mom's in Minneapolis-St. Paul.' 'I love Minneapolis,' he said, 'I'll take you there.'

"When he turned onto Highway 10, I had already had four of those fruit punches. Finally, I asked him where he was going. I wasn't at all alarmed. He said he wanted to show me a spot he always went to when he came this way. He told me not to be nervous, that it wasn't far, and that it was a real cool place. He said that we could have a few drinks together, then he would take me to Minneapolis and give me some coin.

"I was suddenly looking at him as a john. I decided that he wasn't too bad, certainly young enough. I realized he probably wanted just straight, naked sex in his favorite place, and I could always use some extra cash. 'It's forty dollars,' I said, 'as long as it's nothing too perverted.' He nodded. I asked to see his money. He pulled out a large wad of twenties, and soon turned onto a gravel road. We left behind all signs of civilization. He told me that he used to work up there.

"The roadside was overgrown with weeds and shrubs, which were profuse that they hit both sides of the pickup. The road had evidently not been used for some time, and soon disappeared altogether. We drove over clumps of grass. I realized that we were on some sort of wildlife reserve, or a conservation area. I became more focused and saw that there were no telephone poles, road signs, or anything else, just wilderness. I asked where he was taking me, finally getting nervous.

"He pulled up and got down from the truck, then came over to the other side and helped me out. We walked about ten yards away into a small grassy field surrounded by woods. Without warning, he pulled a pistol out from his jacket and shot it into the air. I nearly jumped out of my skin. He laughed and pointed the gun at my face. 'Take off your clothes,' he said. His voice had completely changed. He fired it again, only this time, just over me. I sobbed and asked him not to hurt me.

"He took my hands and tied them together with a short piece of nylon rope that he pulled out of his pocket. I struggled against him as best I could, then he produced a long knife that he had kept inside a pocket of his baggy jean jacket. He told me not to struggle and I wouldn't get sliced. His voice was creepy now in a different way... filled with a high-pitched hatred... and his eyes were glazed over.

"He cut away all of my clothes until I stood naked. I watched as he went through my things, but I had no identification. I only had a small change purse with two hundred and forty dollars, which he took. Then he knocked me to the ground and dragged me by the hair back to the truck. The pain almost caused me to faint. 'Stand up!' he shouted.

"I began to scream for help at the top of my voice, my screams carrying through the woods with an echo. 'Wail away, you bitch!' he whispered urgently in my ear. I asked him what he was doing; I was paralyzed with fear. His voice took on a frenzied pitch. He told me that I was his ninth one, and said that some were boys and some girls, that he kept them out in the conservation area, what he called his Reserve Shrine. 'They're dead happy with their new accommodations.' He laughed this horrible cackle. 'It's alright to be a sacrifice,' he said. 'It's a good thing. I cut them up and dissemble them before they go to heaven.' He let this sentence trail off.

"My fear made any thinking impossible, but I saw that I had been a fool to come out here with him, that I had fallen into serious danger. Sober now, I saw that he had crossed eyes and an unfocused gaze. It had added to the illusion of his youth. I realized that he might be in his late twenties, maybe even in his thirties. He tied my hands to the door-handle of the truck with fragments of my own clothes. He brought his mouth to my titties and bit each nipple so hard that I thought he had torn them off with his teeth. My screams became screeches.

"He went into the cab from the other side, put away his gun, and took off all of his clothes. Then he folded them neatly and put them on the seat. It was totally spooky. At the sight of him naked and holding the knife, I screamed for my life. His dong was a foot in length or so, one of the largest I'd ever seen on a man, and it stood straight up like a stick on a tree. He told me to keep screaming and that if I did he wouldn't kill me. He told me that some of his sacrifices lived for five or six hours before they were put into his Reserve Shrine. 'Believe me,' he said, 'they appreciated that time to get to know me–I mean, the real me.'"

I was starting to believe her story. It sounded real, but how could she be alive to tell it? Something familiar about it echoed through my mind. I stayed focused as she continued. Why she was telling me, I hadn't yet figured out, but she was looking into to my eyes constantly with affection.

"I screamed even louder," she said. "I can still hear my own voice ringing in my ears from that day. I remember his words, something like, 'Scream, you little bitch, as loud as you can.'"

She began to cry, and I was quite alarmed but didn't get flustered.

"I saw the knife come across my shoulders," she continued. "I screamed in new terror as long spurts of blood came from my upper back." She leaned forward, slightly lowering her t-shirt at the shoulders, and showed me the tops of long scars. I shuddered. "Even more spooky, he made the cuts with calm precision. I knew he'd done it before. He shouted at me to scream. I screamed as loud as I could. He told me then that he was going to cut off my fingers and toes, even my titties. Blood ran from my back and down to my bum.

"He shouted out in delight and threw the knife onto the ground. He reached into the back of the truck and pulled out a canister of motor oil. He popped the lid off and poured it on himself at the front, especially over his dong. I could feel my blood covering the whole of my back. He took my hips in his hands and pivoted them toward him, then he gyrated into me and came swiftly. He walked over to my clothes and wiped himself clean, throwing them to the ground. He walked back to the cab and opened a bottle of punch, drinking it back in one gulp. Then he sat on the step of the cab and lit a cigarette. I had been struggling to untie the knot with my teeth. It held me to the cab.

"At last I succeeded in ripping myself free. I picked up the knife and began running in bare feet toward the river. Soon, I heard him behind me and looked back. He'd put his boots on, but otherwise he was naked, running quickly toward me. He jumped for me, grabbing my feet. I tripped, turning and swiping the blade at him. It caught his arm and cut along the skin. He scrambled backwards, the blood pouring out. He was shocked, I could tell.

"He called me a bitch. Boy, was he angry. He turned around and ran back at a terrible pace. 'I'll teach you,' he shouted. I ran deeper into the woods, my body numbed in fear. I brushed thorns and branches and tore the bottom of my feet on stones and roots, but I didn't feel a thing. I saw the river below and raced for the bank, but it looked closer than it was.

"From behind, I heard the first shot, and a bullet whizzed past my ears. I didn't slow at the river's edge, but plunged in full force. I hardly felt the frigid May waters. Under the water, I drove myself on. I'm a strong swimmer in the first place. I felt myself crying as I swam... is such a thing possible? When I came up for air, I let the knife go, and with all my might, swam with the current. I heard several more shots from behind. My body, numbed by adrenaline and cold water, rose to the task, and I traveled out of the Black River Forest Reserve, swimming for all I was worth. I found a house on a county road some miles away and the woman there drove me to the hospital."

"Why didn't you go to the police?" I asked.

"At first, out of fear. Later, I thought of doing it, but when I told my mom what had happened, she said I deserved it for hitchhiking in the first place. Now? Well, it's too late."

Whatever mother would say that to her daughter deserved no love from her, but I kept this to myself. "Tell me about the knife."

"It was one of those Wiltshire knifes, in a self-sharpening case, a great big long one. Twelve inches, maybe."

I rose in shock. It had come to me. "A Wiltshire knife?" I asked. She nodded. "You have to come with me," I begged breathlessly.

"Where?"

"To see my mother. She's a homicide detective who's trying to find this same guy." Mary looked doubtful. "There's a large reward," I continued, searching through my purse. I found the newspaper clipping from the Duluth Standard that I had saved because it mentioned Mom. I began reading the article aloud: "'The family of fifteen-year-old murder victim David Wollend, in conjunction with police in Minneapolis-St. Paul, have posted a ten thousand dollar reward to any individual who can help lead to the arrest and conviction of the so-called "slasher," the murderer of David Wollend. Homicide Detective Catherine Ruckert'–that's my mom–'described his profile as tall, white, in his late twenties, and with long brown hair. He may drive a pickup truck. Paul Wollend was raped, slashed, tortured, mutilated, and killed in St. Paul in July of 1983.' The police fear there may be other murder victims not yet found. They discovered Wollend's gruesome remains two days after his death, and his devoted parents have kept the embers burning with radio appeals and offers of rewards."

"Ten thousand dollars?" she said. "I would still get what you promised from Stacy Williams, right?" I passed her the check for five thousand dollars without further delay. "I'll see your mother," she said.

"I'll take you."

"When?"

I phoned my mom and told her some of what I'd heard.

"Bring her down right now," Mom said.

I phoned Jessie, and left at once for Minneapolis-St. Paul. Traffic was light on Highway 35; we made it in under two hours to Mom's office in the downtown Police Precinct, south from Minneapolis City Hall on 4th Street. The sun had come out and it was warming up. Mom kissed and hugged me, and I introduced her to Mary. Mom bought Mary a cold cola and had her wait in the office while we talked.

"How the heck did you meet her?" Mom asked after a moment.

I told her the story, and then we joined Mary. Mom was dressed in a silk white shirt and dress pants. It was peculiar to see her with a pistol clipped to her belt.

"Do you have a record in Duluth?" she asked Mary, after she had thanked her for coming.

"Not for a long time," Mary answered.

Mom worked on the computer for about five minutes and took a phone call. I sensed Mary's nervousness and guessed that she might not like my mom, but I was hoping that she wouldn't bolt.

On the other hand, I realized that she liked me. That was a funny feeling. I guess I hadn't judged her after all, although I thought her trade seemed irrational, even suicidal.

The sun was creeping into the windows of Mom's large office, and it had grown even warmer. Enormous front and back windows of the old building let the sun fall in straight blocks upon the old wooden second-story floor, highlighting its scuffs and scratches. Mom's office held large filing cabinets and dull gray computer equipment; she had added little else to personalize it. I think she told me that it was a temporary office, but she had photographs of Ingrid, Dad, and me in the old Ruckert mansion, and of Diane, Jessie, and me in the condo in Duluth, one of Ingrid and Dad in Vesey's fire hall, and a recent one of Ingrid starting first year of university in Minneapolis-St. Paul.

"Nat suggested on the phone that you thought you could help find the murderer of David Wollend," Mom said, "and therefore, be the recipient of the ten thousand dollar reward for information leading to his arrest and conviction." Mary nodded. Mom pulled her blonde hair back, re-fastening it with a clip. "You have to supply information which will identify the killer," she continued. "You must be ready to testify in court, and in general, to help with a conviction. After a conviction, the money is yours if you are the one who has helped turn him over to the police. Do you have any identification on you?"

Mary shuffled through her purse, took out her wallet, found her driver's license, and handed it to Mom. "I know nothing of David Wollend's murder except what your daughter told me," she said. "Does that matter?" Mom shook her head.

"I think the person who killed him," Mary continued, "tried to kill me. It has been a whole year, but the memory of that day is scorched in my mind. Unless I'm really blasted, I have nightmares of it every night."

"Last year?" Mom asked disappointed.

"Exactly a year ago today." Mary retold the story, but now with more detail.

Afterwards, Mom excused herself. She returned with her partner, Pace Kunhardt.

He smiled at me. I'd met him before. He was a meek man, squarely built but attractive. He stood five feet, eight inches high or so. He had short black hair, which was graying, and weighed maybe one hundred and sixty-five pounds. For a man who was well over forty, he was in great shape, but I don't think Dad had much to worry about. Pace wasn't nearly as handsome.

Mom introduced him to Mary. She had returned with a self-sharpening Wiltshire knife. From handle to tip it was fifteen inches long; the blade itself was eight inches. Mom held the knife in front of Mary, who turned white as could be.

"Did your attacker use a knife like this?" Mary nodded. "This knife is identical to the weapon used to kill David Wollend." Mary began to cry, and then stopped herself, as if to ask, What now?

"You'd better repeat your whole story," Mom said. "Sorry to put you through this again. Remember as much detail as you can. For instance, the little bottles of liquor you drank from the cooler, perhaps you can even recall the name of the drink?"

"Port Walton Beach Country Punch, that's what they were called."

"Great. Remember as much as you can. Try to leave nothing out. I will tape from this point on." Mom took out a small cassette recorder, placed it on the desk and turned it on.

"Mary Hynes, do we have your permission to tape our conversation?"

"Yes." She then gave her name, the date, and repeated her story, this time with even greater detail than the first or second version. Pace asked several questions along the way.

"May we see your back scars?" Mom asked after Mary had finished her story for a second time. Mary removed her shirt, her breasts held by a thin, white cotton brassiere. I could see two long, thin slashes across her back shoulders. "They're similar to the cuts David Wollend received on his upper shoulders," Mom said. "I need to take some pictures." Mary nodded, and Mom took several close-up photographs with an Instamatic.

"You can put your shirt back on," Mom said.

Mary redressed and sat again.

"When you were assaulted back on May 13, 1985, why didn't you go to the police then?"

"My mom thought it was my fault because I hitchhiked. She'd always forbidden it. After her boyfriend heard that I got into a car with a stranger, he said that he should have killed me himself. They were both angry, and I thought that the police might feel the same way. But now, I met your daughter and I trust her. Plus, I really need the money. I want to go to college."

"I think you will have some claim to that ten thousand dollars," Mom said, "if we find and convict him with your help. In the interim, you have received some money from Stacy Williams." Mom told Mary of her part in the Stacy Williams story, which I thought was considerate. "This place where the slasher took you," Mom asked when she was finished, "could you find it again?"

"It may take some time," she said. "I had drunk several of those coolers. But if I can't do it by road, I'm pretty sure I can do it if I followed the Black River. I was sober by the time I jumped into the water."

"I bet you were," Mom said. "You were exceedingly brave. It must have been hard to keep your head about you, untie the knot with your teeth, and run for your life. The truck, you said, was a red Chevy pickup. Do you think you could recall the year and type?"

"Just a plain Chevy truck, new, I think; a half ton-pickup with oversized tires. He played tunes, heavy metal stuff. The stereo looked expensive... I'm not going back up there unless it's during the daytime, and there have to be a lot of police officers."

"That will be no problem," Mom said. "We will do it first thing in the morning. She looked over at Pace. "I guess they can't say much if Nat comes."

He winked at me. "I should hope not. She broke the case."

I laughed. "I'll have to phone Jessie first." To my surprise Mom frowned at this. "Just to let her know I won't be home tonight," I quickly added.

Mom's glow returned. "Let's go out to dinner," she suggested.

That night after dinner and some wine, Mary and I shared a hotel room downtown–I paid. Mom intended to pick us up at seven a. m., and we were in bed by nine o'clock. Good to her word, mom was at reception by seven. We returned to a St. Paul station in the eastern part of the city where three cruisers were waiting for us.

We took Highway 29 to Wausau, and we were soon on Highway 10. Mom, Pace, Mary, and I were in the lead car. Mary pointed out a gravel county road–perhaps a lumbering road–halfway between Stevens Point and Waupaca into what seemed to be forested state land, adjacent to the Black River Forest Wildlife Reserve.

The road petered out, and when the cruisers couldn't go any further, Mary led us on foot to a cleared field near a river where ragweed and wild purple lilies grew. Eight were in our group all together: the other four were young officers who were little more than recent cadet graduates, all men.

"This is the spot," Mary announced after five minutes of walking.

We all fanned out and begin a search for empty ten ounce bottles of Port Walton Beach Country Punch. We began to find them right away. I found the first one. Without touching them, we put tall metal wires with red flags into the ground wherever they lay. In one part of the field, a sparsely wooded area just before a stretch of forest, we found hundreds of these bottles, if not thousands.

Within an hour, Pace and Mom discovered the skeletal remains of at least two people. One of them was definitely female. Mom stopped the search and had us back carefully away from the spot. She phoned in the news to her bosses, and soon had a large area cordoned off. Forensic experts and investigation equipment were brought in by truck that afternoon. I could hardly believe it. A helicopter landed an hour later with the St. Paul-Minnesota's Police Captain and Wisconsin and Minnesota State Prosecutors.

"It's going to be a joint investigation, and I've been put in charge," Mom rushed over to tell me when they'd left. Before the sun went down, three partially buried bodies, all of them young teenage girls, had been discovered. They had been dug up repeatedly in the recent past. The police brought in a scene trailer and three portable toilets. Mom said the area would be secured around the clock.

"Why the amazing response?" I asked.

"We're missing fifteen or so young women from the Twin Cities Area," Pace said. "We're afraid we're going to find them here in the reserve."

I phoned Jessie that night and told her. "This will make Cathy well-known," she said. "Good for you, my kettle of fish. You've done well. Stay with your mom for a few days and see what develops."

Within three days at the gravesite, five bodies had been uncovered, at different levels of decomposition. They had all been slashed and dismembered–tortured to death–and would have to be identified through dental records of reported missing women.

"The killer told Mary that he worked there," Mom said to me on the fourth day. "It's only a matter of time now before we track down that lead."

Mary returned home to St. Paul, and I went back to Duluth. Mom had already persuaded the powers that be to immediately pay Mary two thousand dollars of the reward money for her help so far.

Mary left confident that she would receive the rest of the reward after a trial. Within another week, every woman uncovered had been identified. They all had records for prostitution and everyone had family or friends who were searching for them. Even Jessie and Diane became interested in the gruesome details. But the days went by, and by the end of June the news had tapered off and Mom and Pace's team had gone from dozens to just six.

Through June, I didn't travel out of Duluth. I read The Greening of America by Charles A. Reich and This Perfect Day by Ira Levin, and continued to work on B&R's financial report. Financially, Jessie kept a tight house, and if I was supposed to be detecting missing funds, she would have been sorely disappointed.

Independence Day that summer was a Friday. Diane, Jessie, and I accepted the Ruckert's invitation for dinner on Sunday. I planned to stay in Vesey for the whole weekend, and Jessie and Diane were coming down Sunday. We would return to Duluth Sunday evening. The trend of my teenage years of living in Vesey during the week and visiting Duluth on weekends was starting to reverse itself.

On Saturday, I went to a Jack and Jill party for Laura Graves and Paul Williams. It was hosted by the "blonde bombshell" Christina Bauer at her mom's house. They were to get married in the summer, and once I saw Laura, I understood why. She was still her old pretty self, but she was obviously pregnant. She looked four or five months along. She had a healthy glow to her face, although her ankles were starting to swell. Paul was the same as ever, his hair as short and his waist as trim, but some of the light had gone out of his eyes.

Christina was absolutely stunning. She had a body with all the right proportions, and a style that attracted men's attention. She wore a simple dress and her blonde hair was lighter than Ingrid's, which I didn't even think was possible. She was taller than Ingrid as well, and exuded coyness, shyness, and constant smile. According to Ingrid, all the boys were crazy for her, and at the party, I could see why. I think it was her shining blue eyes that put her over the top. They almost radiated a mysterious, seductive, yet innocent quality.

Ingrid came with me to the party. Her friends Elena, Mindy, and Chantal were already there. Joel and Carrie were there as well, as were many of my old school mates, but I was disappointed to discover John wasn't coming. I had been led to believe by Dad that he was down for the weekend to lend moral support to Paul and his decision to get married.

Beer and spirits were served. I decided to have some cold white wine, which I watered down with chunks of ice.

I bought Laura an enormous dried flower arrangement that I had purchased in Chicago. It came in three big boxes, all of them wrapped. I gave Paul a check for three hundred dollars, since, after all, I figured that at some point in the future after I married John, he was going to be my brother-in-law. I also bought clothes, disposable diapers, and other things for the baby, all packed in one large wrapped box. I felt bad. No one could compete with me, and it was embarrassing, I suppose–but I paid no rent or other expenses to Jessie, and was now making fifty thousand annually. I tried to explain as best as I could, and I think everyone was pretty good about it.

"Listen to this story," Paul said, after the gifts were opened. He had finished several drinks if his eyes were any indicator. "I finally got up the nerve to go see the old man at the Saint Louis County Prison and Correctional Services. You visit in this small, gray box of a room in a demoralizing, bleak structure; it's practically a booth. You have to take documentation, and they give you this slip of paper that the guards all stamp. Dad was sitting in this old, worn wooden chair, waiting for me with these great big puppy-dog eyes. I was wishing I was stoned."

Everyone laughed, even Laura.

"They'd given me a sort of standard visitor's slip for the prison," he continued, "stating Dad's identification and cell numbers, my home address, and other stuff. Dad was wearing spectacles to read, and he looked over them and caught me coming his way. His head was totally shaved. It hid his gray hair. He had lost a good twenty pounds, and his beer-belly was almost completely gone. He had shaved off his moustache too. He looked younger, and that's saying something in those dull orange uniforms. I didn't know whether to smile or cry. But I'll tell you one thing: last time I had seen him, he looked like a condemned man, but now he looked okay, even genuinely happy to see me. I went to sit but he stopped me, looked around, and gave me a quick hug. With tears in his eyes, he asked how I was, and stuff like that. I gave it back to him and he answered–these are his exact words: 'Whatever I suffer, I deserve.' I proceeded to tell him about Laura, the baby, and the wedding, even though I'd told him that in a letter. Then he asked about John."

I pricked up my ears at the mention of John's name. I also noticed that everyone else there was riveted to Paul's story, anxious to hear about Stacy Williams. He had become sort of a celebrity in Vesey.

"I couldn't tell him the truth," Paul continued. "So I told him that John would come around, but that for now, he was still bitter. Mind you, that's the understatement of the century."

Everyone laughed or smiled.

"I could see the old man's feelings were hurt," Paul went on, "but there was nothing that could be done. He said he understood, and that it was best that he should suffer, but he said he was worried about John–that it might poison John's heart.

"Then he said the most amazing thing: 'You tell John what I've told you, Paul. Tell him that I had become sick in my soul, catatonic and schizophrenic, but Doctor Jesus came to heal me.' Then he got this big, bright smile, almost uplifting. 'I see that you believe me,' Dad said. 'Tell John that I'm forgiven in the eyes of the Lord, and if God will forgive me, so can he. Inside here, I go in amongst the prisoners and preach the Word. You'll be surprised to know, Paul, but many listen to this old sinner. It is because I'm truly repentant.

"'Not a single day goes by when I don't think of your wonderful mother and cry in remorse that I ended her life before her time. I confess my evil deed, and proclaim my genuine salvation to my fellow prisoners. Some are healed, some are suspicious: after all, they too are sick, but Doctor Jesus heals them if they take his medicine.' Dad was just beaming at that point. 'I help where I can,' he said. 'I'm lucky to have even this. The Lord is generous beyond what I deserve.' I told him that what he did when he came forward on his own and confessed was courageous, but he shook his head and told me that it was not on his own, that Jesus sent him an Angel."

Paul suddenly looked over at me. "He told me to watch for Cathy Ruckert, your mom; he said that she was an angel and that the Lord brought her to our family to save us, to pull us together."

Ingrid and I both turned red with embarrassment.

"I told Dad that I sincerely hoped so," Paul continued. "He replied that one can commit an act so easily, but that hell waits around the corner. Dad begged me to learn from his mistake, to give myself over to Jesus. He insisted that God is everywhere and waits for you to mess up, and then he comes to face you and shows you the mirror of your own Dorian Gray. He told me he is reading this famous book, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and that John will know who wrote it."

"Oscar Wilde wrote it," I interjected.

Paul nodded. "He asked me to pray with him," Paul continued, "and I swear to you, I got on my knees. When I left, I felt the poison in my own heart crumbling away. I felt that I would soon be free of it. Dad murdered Mom, but he confessed, and was truly remorseful, a changed man–but I knew that John still wouldn't forgive him, not for now. This morning, John and I had this huge fight about it, and that's why he isn't here. I knew that if Dad hadn't come forward, John and I would have sunk into hatred. Dad saved us from that horrible fate, or at least saved me. I would have carried the venom my whole life. I have a wife to think about, and a baby on the way. Dad let God's light shine on me. Now, I pray that John will find in his heart forgiveness for Dad."

We clapped, and Laura cried and thanked us for coming.

That Sunday, July 6, I went over to Grandma and Grandpa Ruckert's well before dinner to help Kate and Mom prepare the meal. It would be a large gathering: Uncle Gordon Ruckert and his family, Uncle Ned Porose and his family, Eric, a former alcoholic and homeless person from Minneapolis-St. Paul who now worked for Grandpa, and his girlfriend, Annie, plus our family, brought us to eighteen people.

Everyone arrived before Jessie and Diane.

This was common practice. I was in the living room when Grandma rose to look out the front window. The room was known for its extravagant vases and lamps, its new plush furniture, and handcrafted antiques; even Jessie said they were immaculate.

"Here comes trouble," Grandma said to me with a wink. Her hair was done up in a bun with barely noticeable braids. Jessie came in alone–also customary–and her glance fell on Victoria as one might expect a judge to look at a criminal.

"We've been waiting for you," Grandma said.

Jessie scanned the room as she took off her shawl, and her glance came to me with a lightning-quick smile, almost imperceptible. Her eyes then assessed the other guests.

She was dressed in a black outfit that was neither casual nor formal; she had a knack for that. She smiled at Dad, and he waved back. Jessie once told me that he had the kindest eyes she'd ever seen in a man, and that she'd grown fond of them. She also told me that she should have never advised Mom against marrying him; it had been an act of blind prejudice against Christians, and Mom had never forgiven her for it. She went as far as saying that she cursed herself for it, and promised it would never happen again.

When I brought John Williams home, I was going to remind her of those words.

Jessie nodded to Grandpa. He sat in a large lazy-boy by the unlit fireplace, surreptitiously watching her. Jessie called him 'the Patriarch.' He was pleasant and kind like Dad, even spiritual, but Jessie also called him pompous. Kate came over and kissed Jessie on the cheek, taking her shawl and asking how she was doing, and so forth.

"Will you watch for Di?" Jessie asked. "She's parking the Mercedes. No one bothered to leave a spot for us in the driveway."

More than anything, this statement reflected her treatment of the Ruckert family.

"Christian," Kate called into the room, "will you go out and help Diane with parking?"

Jessie waved Dad away. "I can assure you, Diane's quite capable."

Jessie's fierceness preceded her into the living room, as though she were a magical being. In spite of the fact that I believed her to be the antithesis of any magic, her persona did lend credence to what Diane had remarked to me once: to the Ruckerts, Jessie practiced a form of witchcraft.

It wasn't that her opinion of herself had been inflated by her wealth and place.

Privately, she often assessed herself as impolite or too outspoken. But everyone, with the exception of Diane and I, was on their guard when they were around her. I'd come to realize that at any family get-together, her reputation preceded her– which didn't bother her that much.

She put out her hand to Ingrid and kissed her on the cheek, and said hello to Ingrid's boyfriend, Arthur Douglas. Ingrid just couldn't seem to put him aside. That night, his curly hair had blue streaks, which I knew would infuriate Jessie. She believed that ostentatious or flamboyant makeup or hair on women, and especially men, revealed a vain and superficial aspect of a person. Arthur had been accepted at Northwestern University in Chicago, and both Jessie and I were keeping our fingers crossed he would accept– thereby being away from Ingrid.

Jessie crossed the room saying hello to everyone and stopped at Uncle Ned. He was a tall, distinguished-looking man with wavy, short, sandy hair and a muscular build. He was dressed in an expensive gray suit. He stood alone by the fireplace–Joanne and the kids were outside in the backyard.

"Ned, I've been worrying about you," Jessie said softly as I passed a glass of ice water to her.

"I've been away in Russia," he said. "As you know, it doesn't look good over there."

"I've heard the same from other sources," she said, "but what I really want to know is, how does it look at the Ruckert's end? What's the shape of the two plants?"

"I knew you'd ask about that tonight."

"You're finished with your report?"

"I've brought it for you. It's out in the car. You'll be happy."

She smiled, about to respond, when Diane, who had just entered the house, walked up without even taking off her coat. "Jack Mountbar is here," she whispered to us.

Jessie paled at the mention of her former lover. "What?"

"I don't think Jack is here," I said. "I would have warned you."

"At least I saw his car," Diane said.

"Excuse me," Jessie said to Ned.

I followed her into the kitchen. "Is Jack Mountbar here?" Jessie said without a single pleasantry to Mom or cousin Jane, a petite single woman, younger than me by only half a year–Uncle Ned's youngest of two.

Jane looked from Mom to Jessie and excused herself with a whisper, stepping out of the kitchen. She didn't acknowledge Jessie, as though she was too afraid, but she quickly waved and smiled to me.

Mom covered a pot of yams she'd prepared and slowly turned around. "Jack's not here, why?"

Jessie's face calmed somewhat, and her expression became less fierce. "Diane said she saw his car."

"Oh, that," Mom said. "Jack sold me his car. I brought it here tonight to show Dad Ruckert."

"You do these things on purpose just to hurt me," Jessie said. "You know where he stands."

"He's an old friend of Christian's family, and I like him. And besides, he's on the Board, so there's no getting away from it."

"Why would you need a Jaguar?" Jessie asked.

"You're paranoid, Mother–you didn't even enter into the equation. Jack's down this way off and on, and when he offered his Jaguar, I thought it would improve my police detective image."

Mom picked up her juice and took a sip, staring defiantly at Jessie. "You're the one who associated with him for so long. I told you from the beginning that he was right of the Right."

Jessie glowered at Mom, who was standing straight and calmly. I took Jessie's hand. Mom, in turn, shrugged and returned to the preparation of supper. Kate came in and stirred the gravy on the stove top as though ignoring all three of us.

I could tell that Jessie consciously put away her frown, but before she could say anything, Mom stepped out of the kitchen.

"Happy Independence Day," she announced to the household. "Please get everyone to come to the table. Kate and I will serve dinner."

"Let me help with serving," Jessie whispered to Kate.

Grandpa sat at the head of the table. Jessie sat at the other end. This was no accident. The table was a large, oval, walnut-grained piece with dark green upholstered chairs. When they had served the dinner, Jessie sat at her place and looked around. Her glance rested on Grandpa.

"You won't forego grace on my account, I hope?" she said to him. Though her face held a grin perhaps only Mom and myself could detect, an ominous silence settled on the table.

"We appreciate you and Diane coming to our Independence Day get-together," he said. "I know how you detest small talk, so let me respond to your opening jab. Every person at this gathering has faith in God, excepting you and Diane. We love to have you over, and we pray for you to see the true way; you're always welcome and always entertaining. Nat, could you please say a few words of grace?"

Jessie knew that I'd been picked on purpose to rebuff her. I looked around at the guests like I might fade before their stares, but Jessie caught my eye and smiled encouragingly.

"How thoughtful of the Lord to give us so much," I began, "how carelessly we have harvested the bounty. Lord, bless us all, and especially bless those with less, the meek and the poor. Amen."

The crisis over, the dishes began to be passed from one plate to another, directed by Kate. Everyone soon began to satisfy their appetites.

"Tell us, Ned," Jessie said, "what's happening in Russia?"

Ned swallowed what food he had in his mouth, and cleared his palate with ice water. "I'm not sure that I should say anything, that's how bad it is. It deteriorates daily. It's sad."

Grandpa looked up from his meal. "An evil, Humanist philosophy destroyed the heart and soul of that once-great nation," he said. "The best people in Russian society were put into prison or outright destroyed. I understand that Christianity is once again taking roots there. Although the process is slow, with enough time, and with Christ in their hearts, they will recover. Let's hope the same doesn't happen in this country."

Jessie laughed aloud, dramatically so. "It's going to take more than religion to turn Russia around," she said, "and as far as this country goes, if democracy fails, it's more likely to become a theocracy than anything else."

"I don't expect you to understand this, Jessie," Dad said in a soft voice, "but a lack of faith in Christ's Divine Plan is the primary problem of the planet."

I looked down at Jessie's plate. She had taken only small servings of the many dishes offered, and she ate them as though someone attempted to poison her. She caught my eyes and gave me one of her lightening-quick winks.

"The primary problem of the planet today is, quite the contrary to what you say, Christian." With majestic flair, she pushed her plate of food away. " In the year 2050, the earth's population will be nearing nine billion people, maybe more, yet already we have reached the global level of unsustainability."

"Wouldn't you say that science has improved the food supply," Dad said, "medicine has increased life expectancy, and so forth, and that's what has caused part of this?"

"That's hardly the point," Jessie returned in her fierce manner. "The world needs to address the issue of family planning. When would you concede that enough is enough–at fifteen billion people, twenty, thirty, forty? In 1804, the planet had one billion people; this doubled by 1927, doubled again by 1974. Since 1790, our population has increased by 800 percent. Overpopulation threatens our very existence as a species. Reason dictates that the resources of the earth aren't inexhaustible, and that there will be hell to pay–and not a hell made in heaven, if you will excuse the irony of that statement. The earth's thin biosphere is limited. It can't be increased. We have already punched a hole in the ozone layer. Haze hangs over most major industrialized areas of the world. Fossil fuels produce more carbon dioxide than the atmosphere can absorb. Greenhouse gases are increasing. We can't have everything. The economists of the world must unite to take into account not just growth and population, but also our only limited resource: the planet itself. We're not cockroaches. We can't breed endlessly or grow infinitely. If we don't use moderation, if we don't recycle, and if we don't find an alternative to coal, oil, and gas, we will commit suicide as a species. Most importantly, though, the pressure of overpopulation must be immediately reduced."

"I think saying that is fine, Jessie," Eric said. He was large, cheerful, blonde, and full of life. Despite being slightly overweight, he was a healthy-looking fifty-year-old. "However, to see children born into this world–wow, what is a greater pleasure to a person? I'm sorry to say this, but I'm ashamed of what B&R does under your direction on this abortion pill issue. I know that the Ruckert family is hurt by it. Don't you care what your family thinks?"

"What do you think will solve this problem," she asked, "if not family planning? The rhythm method?"

"Many good Christians use that tried-and-true method," Eric said. "We must assume we're in good hands, if we believe that the Lord answers our prayers."

"I have to take that seriously," Jessie said, "and there's not a single serving of alcohol to be had in this whole house?"

I laughed, and so did Diane, but around the table, there was silence. Mom looked over at me, and then to Jessie.

"Mother," she said, "there are times when I could use a drink here as well, but it's usually when you're visiting."

We all laughed, and Jessie shrugged. "It's true," she returned. "I drive people to drink, but to my great disappointment, it hasn't worked on this clan."

We laughed again.

Chapter Eight

Seven days later, Sunday, July 13, 1986, was the second saddest day of my life. It was about three in the afternoon that I received word of Mom's death. She had been murdered by Ricicot Decoté, the serial killer who attacked Mary Hynes'. Pace Kunhardt pieced it all together from conversations with Mom that morning, plus her written log, her voice diary, the radio phone-ins, and the statements of Wendy Alpine.

We met Pace at Mackle's Funeral Hall and Chapel in Vesey at the visitation on the Monday evening. It was an open casket, and everyone said Mom looked good. I just wanted her back. That was all I could feel: childish, resentful self-pity. She was only forty years old.

Ingrid and I just couldn't stop crying. Jessie was devastated, even worse than Dad. I could have hardly ever imagined Jessie showing any weakness, but my own pain kept me from dwelling on it.

The Ruckert family was there that night. It seemed like a nightmare both to me and the family, and to many of the townspeople too. Grandma Ruckert had to leave early, she was so broken-hearted.

When the visitation was over that night, more than three thousand people had signed in, including John and Paul Williams. I didn't even remember seeing them. Many of the other visitors were from the Minneapolis-St. Paul Police Forces.

At the end, when the crowds had gone, Dad, Ingrid, Jessie, Diane, Uncle Gordon, Pace, and Grandpa Ruckert went to the old Ruckert mansion at Dad's invitation to talk. Everyone was exhausted, but we pricked up our ears pretty quickly after Pace began to tell us the story.

"She phoned me at six o'clock that morning," he said after he had settled at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in hand. "I picked up from my motel room at the Wausau Motor Inn. I could tell by her voice that she was all ready to go. 'Pace, we've identified him,' she said in a rush, all excited. I was still half asleep and asked who she had found. It was the Black River Forest serial killer, Ricicot Decoté.

"I told her that I needed to shower and shave, that I would see her in an hour. She headed directly to Wausau. Mark Waters–Officer Paunch, we call him–got her coffee. The first rays of sunlight would have been striking that old polished wooden floor in her office. I remember her staring at it in the mornings while having her first sips. She used to call it her contemplation time. As you know, she was coffee crazy. Sometimes she would stare out the window to the left of her desk. You can see the different blooms of the enormous geraniums at the front–she loved it. Have you seen it?"

Grandpa shook his head, but the rest of us nodded, many of us with tears in our eyes.

"They're in planters made of railway timber," Pace continued, "and there are petunias, gladiolas, and snapdragons too. She planted some of them. You know she likes to start early in the morning. She was always the first in, and often started at six o'clock. When I got there, she was on her third cup. The water sprinklers were running by then, and the lawn glistened with wet grass. You could hear the birds from outside despite the fact that there was a tremendous amount of electronic equipment piled up and buzzing on the floor behind her desk. I plunked down in the chair in front of her. We'd both been tired these last weeks, ever since Mary Hynes's revelations, but we were excited as well. That morning, we'd gotten the big break we'd been hoping for. That was supposed to be our best day.

"She told me that the night before, Kelly Burt, a file officer at the downtown station in St. Paul, linked a red Ford pickup truck to a past sex offender. The suspect was also a former employee of the Black River Forest Reserve. Kelly had a current address–and better than that, an hour earlier, Mary Hynes identified him from a photo lineup in Duluth. Ricicot Decoté managed his uncle's gas bar just outside of Wausau, Breyer's Gas and Variety, and lived in Appleton.

"Cathy was excited, I can tell you that. She had warrants to search his home and the variety store, and to impound his truck, his car, and whatever else we could get our hands on. Even then, police were watching Breyer's Gas and Decoté's home for any signs of him. I could tell that she was impatient for everyone to arrive, and to get the show on the road. But this is the thing: no-one had seen him yet, and we were showing plenty of white and blues."

Pace looked up at us and sighed. He was coming to the hard part.

"The phone rang," he said. "Cathy put it on speaker phone. Detective Bill Wood ordered us down to Breyer's Gas and Variety right away. He told us that Ricicot Decoté had just left with a female teenage cashier, right under our noses. Ricicot had casually walked into the shop and asked why an unmarked police car was parked in the front lot. Nobody except him had noticed it. He then told one of his cashiers, Wendy Alpine, that his truck had broken down and asked for a ride home to get his car. As bad luck would have it, a second cashier was there to cover for her, and Wendy agreed.

"After Cathy hung up, I remember she asked me what I thought Ricicot was up to. I said I thought that he was onto us, and intended to have one more victim before he was caught. She agreed and suggested that I head to Appleton while she hurried to Breyer's Gas and Variety."

Pace rubbed his eyes, perhaps to shore his emotions.

"God, I wished I'd stopped there for a second," he continued, " and had her come with me. The variety store is west of I-51. When she arrived and talked to the officers there, I was still on my way to Appleton. She dispatched other officers to a place where Ricicot worked part-time as a mechanic, Require Parts. Then she radioed in and told me that she thought that I was right, and that Ricicot wanted one more thrill before he was taken or killed. I asked her where she thought he might take Wendy Alpine. She pointed out that he needed complete privacy–somewhere totally secluded, where violent screams couldn't be heard. She had read that another forest management group had employed him as well. She was relatively sure that he wouldn't go anywhere near the Black River Forest Reserve.

"I guess she thought for a few minutes about where he would head, and then came back on the radio and told me that she was heading to Wisconsin Rapids Park. It's just a small public park, but there is a state forest adjacent to it that's leased for lumbering. She was approaching 51 and 10, then was going to go west toward 13 on 10, then south on 13. She told me that if he planned to use Wendy Alpine like the other victims, it might be in that forest. I asked her to call for help if she saw anything."

He looked over at us. "I thought for sure it was a wild goose chase," he went on. "They found Wendy Alpine's Honda Civic, but there was no indication of where he might have taken her, and no signs of a struggle either. Then I realized that Cathy might be right about his plans–but what were the odds that she would find him? Slim. Nevertheless, I turned around and headed toward her position. I didn't hear from her until she phoned in ten minutes later, already in the state forest. I told her that if we didn't find Wendy Alpine in the next hour, she was a goner. She said that there was no sign of the Ford pickup, but thought that Ricicot may have entered the forest from another route.

"She told me that she was going on foot. I begged her to wait for me. I was only ten minutes away. This is what she said: 'Sorry. No time for that, partner.' What happened next, I can only speculate, but I think I've got it down. Cathy had definitely guessed right. The SOB was after one more kill. She must have walked for five minutes or so, and was probably less than a half a mile away from Ricicot's position, when she heard Wendy screaming. I figure that's how she tracked him down so fast and found the torture site. They were in an enormous forest with rolling terrain. The underbrush there is very dry, and the deer flies swarm you on a day like today."

He stopped and showed us the many bites on his arms and neck. "From the Jag to the crime scene is over two miles," he continued, "and some of it is tough walking. I know that she pushed herself onward, surrounded by those mammoth oaks and elms. Her only concern was to save Wendy Alpine–a young cashier, engaged to be married, with a wonderful future ahead of her. When I saw Wendy today, she was a mess, but here's a picture of the girl Cathy saved."

He passed us a photograph of a brown-haired, svelte young woman, tapered wonderfully through the waist and posing in front of a tall cluster of trimmed birch trees in a back yard somewhere. Her stringy hair had been highlighted with blonde streaks, but she wore it tightly back, gathered into a ball that made her angular face alluring–all the more because she looked so young.

"I imagine that the screams became louder and louder," Pace continued. "He had cut away her clothes with a Wiltshire self-sharpening knife, his trademark, by the time that Cathy reached the site. He had told Wendy his experience had to last a long time, and that he was going to cut off her breasts, slowly, then some of her fingers and toes. She told me that he was naked when he tied her up and cut off her clothes. He told her that he'd–"

Pace stopped and looked up at Jessie and I.

"The next part is gross," he said. "He told her that after he'd cut off her fingers and toes, he intended to slice her belly open and let her stumble along the forest road. He told her that he planned to follow her naked and masturbate over her dying body, that it would be a rush. Those weren't exactly his words. I have cleaned it up a bit, if you can believe it. As a souvenir, he would take one of her hands. She screamed through the whole verbal torture. Then he sliced her back to get even higher-pitched screams.

"At this point, Cathy must have been racing toward him, thinking that she had outfoxed the ruthless beast. First she would have seen the truck. From Wendy's statement, we know that Cathy took out her gun and crouched low, coming around from the back of the cab. Wendy's hands were tied to the handle of the truck. She hung from it, semi-conscious. Her bare bottom didn't reach the ground. Blood covered nearly her whole body, streaming from large gashes on her upper back.

"When Wendy saw Cathy, she rose to her feet, gasping in relief. She might have–probably did–give Cathy away, but of course, I didn't tell her that. Wendy's shoulder-cuts were just like Mary Hynes', but perhaps not as deep. Cathy holstered her gun and took out a pocket knife to cut Wendy free. She asked where Ricicot was. Then it happened. Wendy screamed. Cathy spun and Ricicot Decoté, naked as a wild animal, rushed her with a knife.

"She took the blade in the front left side of her chest, just below the heart. She threw him off and managed to retrieve her weapon. Ricicot had scrambled into the cab of his truck and slammed it in reverse. Cathy emptied her Wesson at the retreating truck, but it sped away. I heard the shots, but the screams had stopped. I was closer than I thought, perhaps only two hundred meters away."

"When I arrived, Wendy was still naked, completely broken down, but alive, and though she was a bloody mess, I rushed to Cathy's side. 'You've been stabbed,' I said like a dumbbell. I phoned for helicopter extraction and received an immediate response. I asked her what I should do. She asked me to sit her against a nearby maple tree. My eyes weren't able to leave the sight of the long knife stuck into her chest. 'Tell Wendy to get dressed,' she whispered, 'and then I'll tell you what to do.' I calmed Wendy down and told her that the ambulance would arrive in a moment. Ricicot had cut up her clothes badly but she tried to dress.

"Cathy was bleeding desperately, and I took off my shirt. Using my teeth, I shredded it and took the pieces and twisted and tied them together into two tourniquets, then I wrapped the whole thing around Cathy's chest, as she instructed me: one below the heart and the other, above the wound. Then I looped it and tried to apply as much pressure as I could. This caused her much discomfort, but she was fearless."

For a moment Pace became tearful and had to stop his story to regain his composure. We were all crying on and off.

"The bleeding slowed at once," he went on at length. "Again, with her instruction, I left the knife in her chest. It was in her to the hilt. I knew the size of the blade and I realize how much trouble she was in. I stepped away, out of her earshot, and urged the rescue flight to hurry. I was fearful – and it turned out to be all too true – that the blade must have pierced one of her lungs, which was filling with blood. Cathy instructed me to take a piece of her shirt and stuff it into the wound. 'If I don't make it,' she whispered–her voice was only a whimper by then–'tell my husband and daughters that I love them.' Like a fool, I began to cry.

"I'm sorry, but I just couldn't help myself. She was the best police partner I ever had, but I manage to clamp it up and catch my breath. Wendy, still only half dressed, had calmed herself down and came and held Cathy's hand. Again I went out of earshot and begged them to hurry. Cathy looked vacantly out on the field, and took her breaths with increased labor.

"For a moment, she closed her eyes. 'What a funny thing life is,' she mumbled at length. 'It promises so much but passes so fast.' I urged her to hold on until help arrived, to stay calm. 'Did I ever tell you how gentle and wonderful a person Christian has always been to me?' she said. 'Really, to everyone he meets.'"

At this point, Pace stopped again. Dad completely broke down, and we all began crying again.

"She went on to say that Ricicot and you were creatures of different kinds," Pace continued, after we had recovered. "That they were alien to one another, that one was from God, the other, from the devil. She took her own pulse. I could see that in her eyes she was losing hope. She told me then to tell her mother that she was right about police work, that she should have joined her in the business."

Jessie broke down at this statement, and I went over and hugged her.

"I heard the helicopter," Pace said, "and went to a clearing to wave them down. Only a few clouds sat in the sky. The sun was bright, and a breeze came through the grass in the clearing. I returned to Cathy, and for a moment, I prayed and held her hand. Wendy prayed with me. We said the Lord's prayer out loud. The medics came and tried to revive her for over a half hour, but before they left with her, we knew she was dead."

When Pace left, everyone went to bed except Jessie and I. We stayed up the entire night whispering, drinking wine, and weeping.

The next day, we learned that soon after Mom had died, Ricicot Decoté had been apprehended and arrested in Appleton without incident. He'd been stopped for a traffic violation–speeding. He immediately invoked what is legally called 'initiation after an invocation,' and declared he had nothing to say and wanted legal representation.

Mom was buried on Wednesday, July 16, 1986. The turnout was in the thousands, too many for the Salvation Army Chapel. We had to hold it at the Church of the Nativity, an enormous Catholic Church in Elmer. I made a point of greeting John Williams, although I was too upset to actually carry on a conversation. When he hugged me, I kissed him again, just so that he knew I hadn't forgotten him.

Over a thousand police officers from Minnesota and the rest of the country came.

I returned at once to Duluth with Jessie and Diane. We threw ourselves into our work. In this period, I went to several parties, and for the first and last time in my life, I got drunk several times. Once I was even sick to my stomach. I knew Jessie didn't like it, but she kept her peace.

I continued with the company auditing and accounting summaries and practices. I'd learned by now that Jessie liked to have money in hand before she spent it, and that the company was profitable for essentially two reasons: a low estrogen birth control pill with large worldwide sales, and a home pregnancy test kit that was ninety-nine percent effective, and cheap at under fifteen American dollars. These two items underwrote most of B&R's research.

During this period, I read enormously. This included Jessie's collection of economists, what she called the Bean-Counters Collection, which included John Stuart Mill's Considerations on Representative Government, Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, Maynard Keynes' A Treatise on Money, and others by Ludwig von Misses, Frederic Bastiat, Henry Hazlitt, and Milton Friedon. I also read The First Deadly Sin by Lawrence Sanders, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss, and The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy. As well, I read what I considered a tricky, if not cleverly plotted, book, The Hab Theory by Allan W. Eckert. It was based on a scientific theory that, because the weight of the polar ice caps at the tips of the world was always increasing due to ice accumulation, the earth flipped over every so many thousands of years. I told Jessie about it. She called it ludicrous, and said that air pollution would take care of the ice-caps. It was the first time I had ever heard the expression 'global warming.'

The days of fall were lost to a haze of alcohol, reading, mourning, working, and Jessie and Diane's wonderful company. Often times, without thinking, I phoned home to speak to Mom and ended up crying in Dad's ear, but he was always equal to the task. I know that he missed her enormously, and I could barely stand the thought of returning home to Vesey. In the beginning of December, John Williams phoned me at the office and asked me out over Christmas.

"I'll be in New York over the holidays," I said. "I don't really want to be home for any more than a half a day this year. I'm so tired of crying."

"I understand," he said in his soft, cautious voice. "I'll meet you in New York City."

I thought this answer was very telling, and brave. We made plans. I picked a bar–I had just the one in mind–and we settled on seven pm, Friday, December 19. He arrived ahead of me and was waiting at the front door. I took that as a good sign. He had bought me a long-stemmed red rose. I took it and kissed him on the mouth, giving it everything I had. I could see that he was surprised, but happy too.

Two things I hoped to avoid talking about that night were the murders of either his or my mom. I had let my hair down loose, and it fell nearly to the arch of my back. I had on a long black coat and a fitted green dress that Diane had helped me pick out. He was wearing dress pants and a shiny gray shirt with an open collar. He was paler than usual, but still as debonair as ever to me. We ordered our drinks. I was happy to see that he drank, and slowly reconnoitered the different sections of the Cockfight, a large bar on West 70 Street just east of Central Park South.

Near the front door hung a large print of a famous male nude, Vladimir Sova by the painter Larissa Samara. Near the back there were slate pool tables and a small bar in a room almost separate. In the main area, there was a bar with a marble top, some fifty feet long. It was busy, and plenty of smoke floated in a cloud above it. Gleaming wood pillars throughout gave the bar a sense of newness. I knew from reading the New Yorker it had become a favorite drinking spot of the young.

Hanging on the wall, mostly between large coconut and date palms, were prints of women and men who kissed and embraced, most of them half undressed.

One print depicted a man lifting a woman up against a counter with her breasts revealed. Below it, a limerick read, 'Mister, AIDS is a dilly, so, don't be silly, protect your willy.' Another print hung on the pillar closest to where I sat. A black teenage girl, whose bare back was sharply, invitingly arched, pulled a thin white boy up into her. He was sixteen or so, and he had his shirt off. Below the photograph, a thick calligrapher's script stated, 'If you go into heat and are undressing Venus, don't be indiscreet, gift-wrap that penis.'

In the other direction, toward the kitchen and the washrooms, there was a poster of a young Spanish matador, painted from behind, who challenged a full-sized bull in the arena ring.

"Fifty percent of women polled believe that all cocks are the same size," John read aloud from the poster. "Fifty percent believe there are honest politicians in America. Fifty percent say Noah's Ark existed. Fifty percent believe Coca Cola still puts traces of cocaine in its soda. Fifty percent of women believe that men are genetically superior. Fifty percent believe that looks don't count for much in a romantic relationship.

"I can't say I'm surprised you picked this place to meet me," John said after he was done reading. "Are you making fun of me? Did I spend too long talking about religion when we talked last?"

I laughed. I could see that he was nervous, but he was trying his best. We found two free stools at the bar, and he order us two more drinks. I was drinking a dry white wine, a combination of German and Austrian grapes popular in New York City at the time, Eglise de Bouchet.

"About religion," I said, "I just wanted to warn you that besides weddings and funerals, I probably won't ever see the inside of a church. Perhaps I wasn't being direct enough before, so that's why I brought it up right away. Dad's in the Salvation Army and he's a great father; I love him dearly. You know him yourself, so maybe you got the wrong impression that I'm religious."

I hoped he had the good sense to realize that although I was teasing him, the matter had to be dropped forever. "I've been thinking a lot about you since we last talked," I continued, "I told Jessie you said that achieving excellence in what one does leads to virtue–she very much liked that line–and that human happiness is trying to find some significance in life. She said, 'Oh, he sounds like a keeper.'"

He laughed. "I know you're teasing me," he said, "but I really do believe that each day you should try to better yourself, especially in moral concerns. This is the best of the American way of life."

"You sound like John Galt," I said.

"Who's John Galt?"

I laughed. "That's funny. He's the man who sold the world."

"Wasn't that a book by Robert Heinlein?"

"I think Heinlein's book is called The Man Who Sold the Moon."

"You know Heinlein?" he asked.

I could see that he was surprised; he turned red at being so quickly bested.

"He's the author of A Stranger in a Strange Land," I said, "one of my favorite sci-fi books. "The Man Who Sold The World" is a famous song by David Bowie."

"Who's John Galt, and why is that funny?"

"John Galt is the protagonist of Atlas Shrugged, a novel written by Ayn Rand. It starts with the line 'Who is John Galt?'"

"Oh, I know that book. I read The Fountainhead, about the architect. Do you know which book opened with, 'The greatest laid plans of mice and men?"

"That's an easy one: John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men. I think we're onto something. I feel like I'm in university again. Who opened their book with the line, 'My Dear Wormwood?'"

He shrugged and ordered another drink for each of us. "I don't have the slightest idea, but I'll guess. A Novel in Nine Letters by Dostoevsky?"

"No. My turn again."

"Wait," he objected, "you've made rules already?"

"It's only fair. You miss a turn if you don't know or you guess wrong."

He laughed. I saw that he was relaxing quickly. "At least tell me who wrote it!"

"C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters. It's my father's favorite book."

"And that's the first line?" I nodded, excused myself and found the washroom.

It smelled of strawberry and cinnamon inside the stalls. The ceramic floor tiles were spotless, the toilets glossy white, and the mirrors without smudges. Jessie judged eating and drinking places by the condition of their washrooms. Several prints hung on the walls of naked women and men in shadowy light making passionate love. I studied my reflection in the mirror. My hair looked red in this light, and went well with the green dress.

"Where were we?" I said when I returned. "Don't you think that it's interesting that we haven't been together more than five minutes, and we've created a new game? Let's call it, 'Name that Novel.'" He laughed, and I took a sip of wine. "It's still my turn," I continued. "You should get this one. Who wrote, 'On January' something, 'in fourteen hundred' something, I can't remember the exact dates–'the people of Paris were awakened by the tumultuous clanging of all the bells in the city?'"

"The fifteenth century," he said. "The Hunchback of Notre Dame."

"I made it too easy."

He rubbed his hands together. "Now, who started her novel, 'It's a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife?'"

"Are you trying to give me a hint?" He turned red, and I immediately regretted saying it.

"We just finished doing that one in class," he said by way of explaining himself.

"Grade twelve?" I asked, and he nodded. "I know it," I continued, "just give me a second." I had another sip of wine.

"You're stalling," he said after a minute. "Time's up. Pride and Prejudice."

"Damn, it's hard when you're drinking."

"But it's harder to come up with the quotes," he said. "I wonder if that one even came close." For a moment we laughed, and I kissed him again.

"Go on," I said.

"Here's the next one: 'You don't know about me if you haven't read Tom Sawyer.'"

"I know this one too. Hold on. I need a minute. Was it Huckleberry Finn?"

"As far as I'm concerned," he said, "I served you a give-away. I'm just being nice–but I do think they'll have to get easier the more we drink."

We laughed, and I kissed him another time. "That's for the giveaway," I said. "You have kind eyes like my father, tormented too. Jessie says that eyes like that show strength of character. This next quote is from Jessie's favorite book. 'In the hospital of the orphanage, two nurses were in charge of naming the babies and checking that their penises were healing from the circumcision.'"

"It's hard to believe that someone started their book off with that sentence, and I don't have the slightest idea who it could be. Is that an indication of Jessie?"

"It's The Cider House Rules, by John Irving."

"I've read The World According to Garp and A Prayer for Owen Meany. Can you quote the opening line from your favorite book?"

"Let me think." I paused and had more wine. For a few minutes, I concentrated in silence. "All happy families are alike but an unhappy family is unhappy after its own fashion.'"

"I know it," he said. "It's Anna Karenina."

"You've read it?"

"Are you kidding? It's the best book in the world. Here's one for you: 'The gale tore at them and something, something, something, and he knew that if they did not make land in three days, they would all be dead.' That's as close as I can remember."

"Moby Dick?"

"Good guess, but no. It's Shōgun. Moby Dick starts, 'Call me Ishmael.'"

"I've read Shōgun. I liked it, but I would have never remembered the first line."

"What about the opening line, 'It was love at first sight?'" I asked.

"I don't think I know that one either."

"Catch Twenty-Two, by Joseph Heller. What's the score? Am I winning yet?"

"Are you showing off?"

"Of course not. Here's an easy one: 'My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip.'"

"Great Expectations. Favor for favor. Here's an even easier one from my mom's favorite book. 'Above the town, on the hill brow, the stone angel used to stand.'"

"The Stone Angel."

"See? Have I not been eminently fair?"

He reached over, and for the first time of his own inclination, kissed me. It was our first real kiss. The others didn't count. I had stolen them all. We kissed for a minute, and it was good.

John left to go to the bathroom, and in the mirror on the wall I saw a boy's face behind me. It was the first time I noticed it. I looked away at once, but I had a sudden revelation that he was following me–and not just in New York City. It was a St. Paul face, a Duluth face, perhaps even a Vesey face. He was a teenager, maybe sixteen or seventeen years old. He had a completely shaved head, almost like a cancer patient doing chemotherapy. His angular face and fierce haunting eyes made his pallidness practically unnoticeable. I shuddered and chanced another peek.

He was gone. I made a note to tell Jessie. I suddenly got the distinct impression he'd been following me for years, and I wondered how that was possible. It was like waking up from a dream. I'd have never had the revelation had I not been drinking. Furthermore, I was super-focused because I was with John, so it made sense that I hadn't noticed him before tonight.

I promised myself to start watching for him from now on. Maybe he was stalking me.

My great fear was that he was from the discredited group of Christians, The Star Christian Association for Revelation of the Ecclesiastics, the ones who had egged Jessie's car so often and who had verbally threatened me in the streets of Duluth. I'd never been so scared as that day.

"What's wrong?" John asked when he returned.

"I'd like to go now," I said. "Where are you staying?"

"I haven't made arrangements yet."

"Stay with me. My hotel is a few blocks away at the Hyatt. We can have a few more drinks in the room."

John found a cab, and as soon as we arrived, we kissed, hardly looking at our luxury accommodations nor making a drink. I took his hand and half guided him over to the bed, and we were soon under the covers. He lay beside me, rubbing my stomach and breasts softly. My hand ran over every part of his body as we kissed. He had short, fine, silky black hair on his chest, his stomach was flat, and his sides were almost indented. His scrotum became so contracted when I put my hands on it that it felt like a rubber ball, then he moaned and his tool constricted, expelling his semen over the front of me. "Sorry," I said with a giggle.

"I couldn't stop it," he whispered, "but it felt good."

His cheeks were as flushed as mine. He wiped himself off with the bed sheet and rolled it up into a ball, throwing it on the floor. Soon we began again, and this time he was able to hold on until he was inside of me. Mind you, I didn't put my hands anywhere near his privates, but this time he lasted only a moment before he moaned again.

Fifteen minutes later, we tried again, and he stayed in me long enough for me to get on top and climax. I rose and made us some drinks. "You're very beautiful," he called from the bed.

I'd already guessed that I was his first woman. Dad had told me that once a man is in love with a woman, he forgets the other casual affairs that he has had, and sometimes he even wishes he hadn't had them. I believed that was sometimes true, but it was a bit unintelligent as well. However, the point was, I wasn't concerned about John.

He had every positive adjective you could throw at a man: cute, cuddly, tall, dark, handsome, and so forth. If he'd wanted to sleep around, he would have, just like Paul had. But John found himself alone in the world, a religious man and a gentle teacher, the son of a murderer. He could have found sex a lot easier than he could find love or marriage. Even with me, there would be hurdles, although I knew that most of them would come from Jessie. She could be pitiless.

We stayed up until six o'clock and made love again and again. We remained in bed the whole of the next day and ordered up room service. The Color Purple was playing on the hotel's movie channel from noon until two, and we watched it lying next to one another. It seemed natural to me to be naked with John. I had loved him a long time, and had no trouble conceiving of a life together.

It was harder for him, and he kept asking me if I was alright. After the flick, we made love again, then both of us propped ourselves up and read. I had This Side of Innocence by Taylor Caldwell. He had Henry James' The Golden Bowl.

We slept together that night, and again it felt cushy. I had a great sleep, and I could see that he had as well. We flew back to the Twin Cities together. Parting was hard for him; he didn't know what to say. I could already tell that he was in love with me, but he was wondering whether it could all be worked out. He hadn't expected to get a lover from Vesey who knew the whole story, who'd been involved from the beginning. He was confused.

"I'll phone you tomorrow," I said. I had to stay on the airplane. "Maybe we can meet this weekend."

He whispered something with a cracking voice, and left without looking back, which I took to be a sign that he was teary-eyed. He had it bad. On the rest of the way home, I read If Tomorrow Comes by Sidney Sheldon

At Jessie's, all I wanted to do was to tell her, but somehow a combination of fear and self-restraint held me back. I think Jessie and Diane could tell I was in love, but neither wanted to be the one to bring up the topic.

When you fall in love, it's a little bit like the feeling of rejuvenation after being sick with a viral infection. You feel that before you were sick, but didn't know it, and suddenly you're well.

Over Christmas, John and I made love as many times and in as many places as we could find.

John bought me a collection of stories centered around the King Arthur legend, which I had expressed interest in collecting, including T. H. White's The Once and Future King, Victor Canning's The Crimson Chalice, Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills, Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Joan Wolf's The Road to Avalon, and John Steinbeck's The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights. The collection also included some of the earliest stories of Arthurian Tales: Chretién de Troyes' Gawain, Lancelot, and Percival, Sir Thomas Malory's The Death of Arthur, and Edmund Spencer's The Faerie Queene.

I didn't know how he did it, and with such short notice, but all of them were new, hard-covered editions. He must have sent away for them and paid a fortune, unless he was collecting them beforehand for himself. I bought him Fayen for Men, one of the most expensive perfumes in the world. It smelled like a flower so divine that you wanted it on your pillow beside you every night. Now I had both.

When I returned with the Arthurian books, Jessie asked me where I got such a collection. To my shame, I lied and told her a friend in Vesey had ordered it at my request. Far more importantly, I had forgotten to tell her about the face in the mirror at the Cockfight.

The first week of the new year, a major Christian magazine, The Barricado, published an article stating that Basle Pharmaceutical, a B&R research brainchild which ran the Gurucet Facility in France and was headed by a brilliant French scientist, had created Uniprostaglandin RX 400. The pill, more commonly known as U-Refuse-400, was an abortifacient pill. The next day, a busload of anti-abortion protesters from Duluth and the surrounding area showed up at the doorstep of the Basle Building.

Despite the cold weather on the next day, Wednesday, January 15, 1987, the crowd grew much larger, and Diane phoned the police. Diane and I were together with Jessie in her office, looking down on the burgeoning crowd. A little frost had gathered on the circumference of the windows. I could see that Jessie was growing alarmed and was mumbling to herself. We were fascinated with them as well, and the scene brought us constantly to the windows.

Though U-Refuse-400 had worked perfectly on primates during testing, it hadn't been approved for humans by any government regulators anywhere in the world, nor was it about to be. It was a political hot potato in the USA. I'd heard the tail end of a conversation once between Diane and Emily, Jessie's secretary; they were discussing how B&R was going to try to market the pill as a fully subsidized product of the UN in areas of Africa. Jessie thought it was worth a fortune, but I wondered whether she should sell it. I believed it had no legs in America, and since the Cold War was over, it would have no legs anywhere that America didn't want it to be.

Dad and John felt the same. However, the anti-abortion movement had sprung into action. They solicited every Senator or Congressmen's support they could find, and were carrying their fight to every corner. U-RX 400 caused spontaneous abortion even up until the tenth week of gestation. Jessie had confidence that it could single-handedly end any effectiveness of the anti-abortion movement.

As she looked down on the protesters, her face held a grim expression, but I came over and gave her a light hug.

"Their latest favorite tactic has been to compare this activity to the Civil Rights Movement," she whispered. "They forget that they were on the other side of the fight back then." She returned to her seat and worked for a few minutes, but then she rose for the fourth time and joined me at the window. I laughed softly.

"They're mostly older women and younger men," she said. "Isn't that funny?"

"Is our crowd still growing?" Diane asked, coming in from the other side.

Diane's hair was a little longer, just enough to soften her face a touch. She came up and looked down. "Looks like a crowd of old ladies."

Jessie nodded. "They approach the twilight of their undistinguished years in fear of oblivion," she said. "All their lives, they've served an empty abstract ideal. They preach that a protoplasm is the exact same thing as a fully-developed human being, and now they can espouse their righteous indignation with so little personal cost."

"Heroes on the dime," I said–rather cleverly, I thought.

"You bet," Jessie answered. "They don't christen or even bury miscarriages. But they protest about abortions day and night. They feel better about creating another human life than dealing with the millions of hungry children that their policies help bring about. Why shouldn't the world have U-D-Tec-300 or U-Refuse-400?"

"But what about the young men there?" I said. "Why are they here?"

Jessie shrugged. "That's hard to figure out."

"It's hectic out front," Diane added. "One of the staff, Ann Simpson, says that she was spat on. But the real reason that the crowd is so large today is that The United Council of Christian Churches has announced a national boycott of B&R's products, and they've come here to kick off the event."

"This will be the end of us," Jessie said.

"I don't know about that," I retorted. "They're their own worst enemies. I saw on television yesterday that a group of them are trying to have oral contraceptives declared as abortifacient, and they talked about boycotting all companies that make birth control pills. Well, that's just about every pharmaceutical company in the world."

"You're right," she said. "Perhaps consumers will just ignore them. After all, they were created to be ignored–and if they weren't so prone to using force to get their own way, they would be. They are almost as silly as those environmentalists who use force or inflate pollution figures to get attention. Never has a more foolish group of people ever congregated. Their primary goal is to stop abortion, but their ultimate goal is to create a theocratic state. The literal interpretation of the Bible is absurd enough–heavens, allegoric belief in it is sufficiently difficult. No wonder Christianity has devolved into a thousand different doomsday sects.

"U-D-Tec 300 and U-Refuse-400 will liberate women around the world as much as the birth control pill has done. Some day, B&R will have an automated blood analyzer that will detect cervical, uterine, and breast cancer, and other female diseases. If a person is born into misery, famine, and suffering, with each family having as many children as possible, these protesters consider that true moral superiority–but if thoughtful parents have one or two children, or even none, that's considered unnatural. That's why the religious intelligentsia, an oxymoron if ever one occurred, call young professionals with two children 'selfish.' They're disdainful of those who manage their lives without religion."

"Many Christians manage their lives just fine," Diane said with a frown, "and not all of their organizations are against us."

"Most of them are against abortion. Christians don't care seriously about overpopulation. Many of them believe that in their lifetime, Christ will literally descend from his magic kingdom and save the true believers and torture their enemies, especially the most immoral: the intelligent, sincere nonbelievers–they're the biggest offenders. To the believers, it is better to suffer in God's grace than to live a happy life without God. Remember, they're prepared to use violence to get their way, too. Look at the threatening letters from Christians all over the country that we've received so far. They're more willing to kill for their God than to die for him."

"Thank goodness Mom's not here," I said without thinking.

Jessie continued to look out the window, but she no longer focused on the crowd below.

"It's five months since Cathy's been gone," she whispered.

After a moment, she turned to me. "Imagine her saying that I'd been right about police work." She began to cry. "All along, she might have been right about Christians, and I'm dead wrong." I hugged her. "No parent deserves to outlive their children," she continued with a whisper. "Look, it's begun to snow. Soon they'll be able to make angels on the ground. "

We laughed. "Diane, would you bring the car around?" Jessie said, after she'd recovered herself.

"To the front?" Jessie nodded. "Come on, Jessie," Diane complained, "it's too dangerous."

"The press is here now," Jessie added. "Time to let these people embarrass themselves."

Soon we watched the Mercedes pull out onto the street and park in front of the building. Jessie put some Visine into her eyes to get the redness out. Jessie and I put on our long black winter coats. "Go tell Emily and Clara that anybody who asks to leave early, can do so with pay. Tell them to sneak them out the back door. Anyone who stays has to hold down the fort."

We took the elevator to the first level, and when we stepped out the door, someone from the crowd shouted, "There she is, the baby killer!"

Jessie and I walked slowly down the front walk. Jessie's intense, thin face gave her an almost fierce appearance.

"Baby killer!" the crowd roared around us. Some of the demonstrators began to throw little plastic naked baby dolls at us. Then there was a surge, and they crowd pushed at Jessie and me. I pushed them back, and suddenly saw the boy from the mirror at The Cockfight. He held a placard which read, 'KILL THE BABY-KILLERS INSTEAD OF THE BABIES!' and brought the sign down on Jessie. It caught her on the right side of the forehead. She cried out, and I caught her as she fell. Blood flowed down the front of her face.

"Get back," I shouted at the Christians.

The swirl of the crowd slowed while the cameras flashed. The protesters realized their mistake, but it was too late. Jessie had tricked them, or at least had tricked the boy from The Cockfight. The crowd was shocked that one of their number would strike in broad daylight. They stepped aside now to allow Jessie a path to the car. Her face and hands were covered in blood, which she did little to hide.

The boy had dropped the sign and mingled into the crowd. We got into the Mercedes, and Diane sped to Duluth General Hospital.

"They talk about violence against fetuses," Jessie said, "but they can get pretty violent themselves. It reminds me of the hippies in the sixties, fist-fighting with the police to end the war. That was a farce."

"You deliberately went to look for a fight," Diane rebutted from the driver's seat. "One of them might have killed you. They're evil."

"No more evil than any so-called fundamentalist," Jessie said, "Muslims, Jews, Hindus, or what have you. All those who believe in magic are cut from the same old, tired cloth: creed above fact. This exercise was valuable. A picture on the TV is worth a million votes."

I can't say that I was happy about this side of Jessie, but you had to take the good with the bad. No one's perfect.

The pictures did make all the northwestern and northeastern national liberal newspapers.

On the way to the hospital, I told Jessie about how I had seen the boy who had struck her in the mirror of a downtown Manhattan nightclub.

"Damn, Nat," she said. "Someone's stalking us. We better find out who. I'll get in touch with our old friend, Detective Kaze of Duluth Investigation Services again. Damn, you should have told me sooner. I wouldn't have ventured out. Di's right. He might have killed me."

Chapter Nine

I didn't hear from John until the last Friday of January. I was in my bedroom at the condo, working at the computer when he phoned. It was the first phone call he had braved to Duluth, but I think he knew that Jessie was in Chicago–not that it would have mattered. Before she left, she told me that she knew I was sleeping with someone and demanded to know who it was. I fessed up. She looked at me as though I had lost my mind, and proceeded to call me several names, among them 'retarded,' 'stupid,' 'idiotic,' and 'absurd.' I picked up on the second ring.

"Where are you phoning from?" I asked.

"I'm in Vesey for three days," he answered. "Can you make it down this weekend?"

"There's a long list of jobs on my desk at the office. Jessie wants an outrageous amount of stuff done before the trial begins. She knows I intend to go every day, and she's being insistent. And I've got to get this bedroom of mine organized. I can't even find my cotton red dress–that's the one I wanted to wear for you next Saturday. What if you ever came over here? You would think I was a slob."

"Is that an invitation?"

"I think even Jessie will visit the courthouse for a few days," I continued, ignoring his question. "It would be a good time to meet her. Don't you think?"

"You've told her?"

"Last night."

"What did she say?"

"You have to understand Jessie. Just like I told you, she always has a lot to convey, and you wouldn't have wanted to be here last night to hear it–but I'd say, all in all, it went rather well. She called me a number of names, but I got called a fool only once, that's her favorite detraction. So, you see, that's good."

I waited for him to laugh, but he didn't. "As a couple, we were called names only four times," I added. "Beside Jessie's statement that I've disgraced myself in the eyes of Mom–that one went over the top–I would consider it a raving success."

This time he laughed. "I love it when you laugh," I said. "It sounds like a brook. But never mind about Jessie. She loves me too much for us to worry about. She'll get over it. It's just that she'll be cranky for a few weeks, but no matter who I was going out with, she would probably be cranky."

"I saw your dad today."

"You went to see him?"

"I would tell you if I planned to do that. I met him by chance in downtown Vesey, and he took me for a coffee. He insisted. He didn't say anything specific about you and me, but it was clear by the way he talked to me that he knows about us. You didn't tell him?"

"Ingrid knows, and so he probably knows too. Anyway, we don't keep secrets from him. What did you think of him?"

"I've known him for years. I think he's great. He's down-to-earth, but there is something sound-minded about him too, something spiritual. His eyes glisten when he talks about the Lord."

"Don't ever mention that to Jessie. Of all the things you can say to her, the fact that you believe in God and are religious will bother her more than anything else–even more than your father's history. Don't doubt it for a second: she is the most militant atheist you will ever meet."

"Fanatical atheists like the Bolsheviks have done as much harm as any religion."

"That well may be, my chum with a nice bum, but she's no Communist either. She's an ardent capitalist with a capital C, and she thinks that most of the problems in American are the responsibility of the religious right or the socialist left."

"It's hard to understand that," John said.

"She believes that the far right are all in it together, that they helped the Nazis after the Second World War, that they're anti-Semitic, and that in their fight against the Civil Rights Movement, they killed the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King, to name just a few of her theories. She thinks the far left would destroy civilization before consenting to economic liberty, that they are hostile to any human individuality at all, and that they're responsible for the murder of hundreds of millions of people throughout the world in this century. "

"Oh."

"Exactly. But she can defend herself, don't ever doubt it. Enough about my family. How's yours? I know you hate to talk about your dad, but I still say that you should make amends."

I knew from before that this was going to be a major hurdle in his life, but I dropped the issue for that night and we talked of other things before we said good night.

It may seem hard to believe, but through February, despite my long hours at the office, I finished every single book that John had bought me on the Arthurian myth.

On the last day of February, Jessie, Diane, and I received a visit from Detective Kaze at the Basle Building. We had heard as a matter of gossip that his wife had left him for a younger man, and to meet him now again–to see his eyes full of hurt and the stress around his smile–we all believed it. He seemed as unhappy as a soul could be. He was less stout than I had remembered him, less muscular, but just as dire. He still had hard gray eyes and wore a beard.

He put his thick file on the table and sat down in front of Jessie's desk.

"I think you had all better sit down for this," were his first words.

We were immediately focused, I could tell you that. He had notes with him, and was prepared for a speech or something.

"When we infiltrated the group back in June 1979," he continued, "seven and a half years ago, I was a small agency. But something about them made me keep up the facade as we grew. The Reverend Bowers had tons of tenacity. I saw it outright, but more importantly, his followers had too much faith in him. I saw this right away as well. As you know, Ms. Basle, through an alias of mine that we called Bat Cockling, we made a sizable donation to get inside The Star Christian Association for Revelation of the Ecclesiastics.

"Mr. Cockling–me–has continued to donate to them every year, and he has even attended a few meetings over the years. Odd of me to do it, you might think. I'll tell you why I did. When I met Reverend Gerry Bowers, I liked him. From the moment we met, we had mutual regard for each other. He's a gentleman, with these kind warm eyes. An exceedingly tall man at six feet, four inches high, and at least two-hundred pounds–an attractive man as well, charismatic."

Kaze passed out pictures to us of Reverend Bowers. He had long, neat, sandy brown hair with a touch of gray. I thought it was offset by a vibrant appearance and a sincere-looking smile.

"Every time I've seen him, he has looked great," Kaze continued. "He works out. He is in superb physical condition for a man over fifty. His coal black eyes are full of compassion, as you might imagine a true Minister of the Lord."

He stopped and looked at Jessie, perhaps wearing a little bit of a frown.

"'How does this jive,' I asked myself long ago, 'with a group of followers egging Jessie Basle's car and threatening her granddaughter?' That's why I continued to donate to Bowers' association. Since then, I've heard him talk at many places.

"Years ago, he got his start at The Cleveland Epistle Baptist Church as the junior minister, but I'm told that his sermons all invariably returned to only one single issue: abortion."

Kaze was going page by page through his folder as though he had rehearsed his address to us. I was getting mighty nervous.

"The constant prayer vigils for what he calls 'the hundreds of victims who die weekly from the murderous practices allowed in our beloved country' became his only focus," he continued. "Soon he began to try to organize the church for full-time protest, but he and his small local group of supporters were eventually banned from The Cleveland Epistle Baptist Church, They were accused of preaching civil disobedience against a court-order which forbid them to protest in front of medical clinics and hospitals performing abortions."

He looked over at me. "Nat, could you get me some water?"

Bottles of water were kept in the refrigerator in the outer office, and I was gone only a second.

"'It's the most consequential crime in the world today," he was saying when I returned, apparently quoting Bowers, 'it affects everything.' Okay, are you with me so far?"

We nodded.

"Enter Kelsey Kratten, the boy Nat saw in the mirror in the New York City bar," he continued. "He fell in with Gerry Bowers and his radical ideas several years ago. I wasn't following closely at the time, but I think he had become intrigued with the Reverend while Bowers was still ministering at The Cleveland Epistle Baptist Church. Kelsey took his parents to Bowers' sermons, and they immediately became concerned. I've met with them. After they had heard a few of Bowers' impassioned, almost embittered, sermons, they forbade their son to see him again. They told him that they oppose abortion, but in their opinion it was wrong as well to promote violence to end abortion as Reverend Bowers did. They said that peaceful political action was the only acceptable alternative for a Christian. But this moderate view infuriated their son.

"Kelsey is a lean boy with a close-shaven head. He continually rubs his dark, indented eye-sockets. His parents told me that he has always been impatient. They seem normal enough themselves. Every time I've seen his mother, she is dressed as though just returning from some social event. She has sharply defined facial features, which aren't softened by her neat, sandy hair. She's forty-two years of age, and looks after herself. She has this liberal democratic decency about her. It's even conveyed on her features. The father is stern, but I found him to have his own fair share of wisdom. He is a tall one too, likely as tall as Bowers. I find that interesting, and so should you."

"Why?" I asked.

"Kelsey gets creepy. Just wait. About a year went by and his parents hadn't heard a thing about Bowers, but his mom was in cleaning his room while he was gone one day. He had left his diary open."

Detective Kaze pulled separate pages out of his file. "'Since the voice of God came to me,'" he said, reading from the pages, "'I've been happy. The first visitation came from an angel of the Lord, Cloven, over a month ago. Be a witness against her, the angel said that night."

Kaze found another page. "'Cloven came again.' You've been brought forward to be a witness of her sin, the Angel said. You'll soon be shown how."

Again he turned the page. "Cloven visits me almost every night, and I've become an avatar of the Lord's message.'"

Kaze looked up from the page and raised his eyebrows. "Needless to say," he continued, "the family was alarmed, and grew more alarmed when they found out that Kelsey was seeing Gerry Bowers on the sly. They forced Kelsey into counseling. However, soon after, Kelsey told his parents that Bowers explained to him that the voice wasn't a sign of psychological problems at all, but a call to action from his conscience–that it would subside if he acted and joined their group of revolutionary fighters."

"Damn," Jessie whispered.

A cold shudder passed through me, and I looked over at Jessie and Diane.

"Needless to say, he joined the group," Kaze went on, "and was the odd one in it, at least in appearance and age. I met him at a meeting months ago. He stuck out, but he didn't speak. He was creepily quiet. However, he did seem to be the leading cheerleader for Bowers. I wondered if they were lovers, but I've found no evidence of it."

Detective Kaze pulled out another sheet and read from it. "'There are many couples who can't have babies in the natural way,' Reverend Bowers preaches, 'but who long to adopt. There's no social reason for abortion. For every problem, the Lord gives real, viable solutions for people who want to follow the Divine Plan. Christian conscience-raising is our goal; however, we must also educate non-Christians to understand why it will be to their long-term benefit to live in a society modeled on permanent, absolute values. A society with an absolute standard of value and a system of beliefs whose authenticity is guaranteed by God will be a better one, especially for a pluralistic democracy.'

"So this is the kind of stuff Bowers talks about constantly. The last time I was at a meeting, they reviewed strategies to prevent three local clinics from re-opening. They had been closed because of their constant protests."

He took out several pictures.

"This is one of Bowers' long-time allies, Mrs. Gail Nicholson," he said and pointed to a photo of a robust woman, slightly overweight with long gray hair falling straight down her back.

"She appears to be gentle and kind-hearted," he added, "but she gives her whole time and effort to Bowers and his radical goals. There are seven to ten members who frequent Bowers' little flat on Bluelake Street in Cleveland. It's on top of a variety store inside a townhouse complex, just north of Saddleback Trail in Cleveland Heights.

"This is Mark Erbeck, the oldest of them at sixty-two."

He showed us another photo, this time of a man of medium height, with his brown hair cut short, and a large stomach protruding over his belt.

"He is a mild-mannered widower who has been with Bowers for years. Not too bright, though, or at least I thought so. A former minister has also joined them, Reverend Cody Thompson. I don't have a picture. He's thirty-seven and now is a lawyer specializing in criminal law, and more specifically, the rights of the unborn. Matt Chandle is another one."

He passed a photo of a tall, stick-thin older man with gray hair.

"He's been retired for a decade," Kaze went on. "He is a former doctor. He's never missed a meeting that I've been to, six in all, and he's always dressed just like that. This is Galvin Alferious." He passed us another picture, this time of a very tall, thin, attractive man. "He occasionally disagrees with Reverend Bowers," Kaze said. "He's twenty-nine, and comes from a traditional religious home, Greek Orthodox. He is the only member of the group who has a family with young children. I don't get him; he's a bit quirky too."

"As are we all," Diane said.

"Really?" he said without a smile. "Here's something over the top. They have a wealthy supporter, Jack Nivens. I don't have a picture of him either, and have only met him once. He is a man well over fifty, almost corpulent, yet he hides it a bit with his height. He's six-foot-something. This is Cheryl Southstone"–the photo was of an undistinguished-looking woman–"and she is downright spooky. She constantly professes her love for the unborn; she often publicly weeps for them. She has forbid herself any worldly pleasures so that she might serve Reverend Bowers' struggle. She gives her whole fixed income over to him."

"They are all over the top," I said.

Kaze raised his eyebrows as though to chastise me. "Bowers has but a single crucifix hanging in the apartment," he continued. "'Icons are for snake charmers,' he said once when I asked him about it. His axiom, as he so often describes it, remains to serve the Lord by seeking the truth, and that truth comes through science as well as through faith. This, too, seems to be among the themes of his flat: there's a hand drawn-sketch of Albert Einstein hung beside an oil on canvas of Pope John Paul, and a photograph of Stephen Hawkins next to a huge print of St. Peters Cathedral. See what I mean? There is a big print of Gerry Falwell at Liberty University, but there's also a picture of the space shuttle Atlantis lifting off at Cape Kennedy."

I could see that Jessie was completely riveted by the contradictions.

"At the last meeting I attended, he announced that Edith Crowley and Dan Neville, two of the group who are presently under a subpoena, wouldn't come to anymore meetings. He is kind of kicking them out. 'Remember,' he said, 'the Cause is bigger than any individual's need.' You see that he is a little bit ruthless as well. 'Keep them in your prayers,' he told us. Now, on to Kelsey."

Kaze held up a miniature cassette tape. "This is word for word. I taped it."

He pressed the play button. "I wanted to ask if I could speak tonight," the male voice said, sounding uncanny to me. Kaze pressed pause.

He passed us his second-last photo for the evening. It was of Kelsey Kratten. I was drawn to his distinctive face. It was indeed the boy from the mirror in The Cockfight: he was taut and his narrow features were intense, and the deep sockets of his eyes seemed too dark to be real. He still kept his head shaved, and he looked truly haunted.

"At the time of this recording I nearly rubbed my hands in glee," Kaze said. "He was finally going to speak. All the times I had seen him, he hadn't said a single word all night–but listen to what he says. You will be shocked out of your socks."

Kaze pressed play. "As you know," Kelsey said, "since we first heard of the story of Basle and Ruckert's decision to pursue research on the abortion pill for the American market, I've done a study of the forces behind it."

"It's a nightmare," Jessie whispered and rose, paling.

Kaze paused it. "It gets worse, Ms. Basle. The next voice is Bowers."

He hit play. "I bet in this case," Bowers' voice said, "the devil hides behind just one skirt."

"Jessie Basle," Kelsey's voice returned with relish. "She's very rich, well inside the Fortune Five Hundred. B&R has publicly denied doing research on an abortion pill, but I phoned them pretending to be someone annoyed by the fact that they're conceding to right-wing Christian pressure to stop the research. I was insistent, and kept on being pushed up the chain of command at their head office in Duluth while I became more and more adamant that something had to be done in America to stop extremists from setting public policy. I even threatened them with a boycott from fringe women's organizations.'

Detective Kaze paused it. "To their credit, no one laughed at this, including Bowers."

"I finally talked to a despicable man, Brad Paul," Kelsey's voice continued, "and he said that as far as he could see, I shouldn't worry. He said that the company continued to pursue research in whatever direction they deemed fit. Before I hung up, he also said that if Jessie Basle, who is considered the Iron Lady of the abortion issue, could settle the problem with one single pill, she would."

Jessie had taken to pacing back and forth.

"Does anybody know the female nomenclature equivalent of Damian?" another male voice said.

"That is Jack Nivens."

"I'm thinking that it's sort of a waste of time to hypothesize that she is one of them," Bowers' voice said. "She's not Jewish. I think she might be one of those intellectual atheists motivated by the betterment of human kind. If you disregard Revelations, or even the existence of the Almighty–well, overpopulation seems like an insurmountable problem."

"She's one of them," Kelsey's voice said. "By God, she even dresses in black. She seems to be motivated by the Jewish philosopher Ayn Rand. In an interview in the Humanist magazine, she spoke in open admiration of the French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, and of his repugnant philosophy of Existentialism. In another interview in Man Today only a month ago, she said that the Canadian abortionist and mass murderer, Henry Morgentaler, remained one of the most courageous Canadians in history. I think that Jessie Basle is one of Satan's agents."

"Keep the reports on Basle and Ruckerts coming," Bowers' voice responded, "but don't become transfixed by Jessie Basle. Many well-meaning people are misinformed on the abortion issue. Our desire is to convince and convert, not to demonize."

"It's just that from what she says and writes," Kelsey voice's said, "she isn't one of the misinformed."

Detective Kaze looked up. "Okay, so, that's the group," he said. "Let's turn to Kelsey's family. It gets even creepier–not them, him. They are upper middle income Catholics from Cleveland. They live on Barcley Street, in a large house on a cul-de-sac bordered by a wooded municipal park where Kelsey played his whole life: the typical American family. His neighbor's homes are the same, basically. The neighborhood has the appearance of serenity, but it doesn't feel peaceful for him. He hates rock and roll music and calls it noise pollution produced by agents of the devil. He has told his sister that all their friends' parents are drunks or lost to the corrupt, greedy corporate world, just as everyone in America is lost to the sick, sterile materialistic culture–stuff like that. She told me that one night–"

"How did you get to know his sister?" I asked.

"I forgot to explain that part," he said. "It's most uncommon. When I was following Kelsey around Cleveland, I noticed her doing the same thing. I got into a conversation with her, and we became friends. Diarchy's her name."

He passed us a photo of a photogenic, model-type teenager with long black hair. Her hair was about half the length of mine. Her eyes were especially shiny, and she might have weighed a hundred pounds or so. She was exceedingly attractive.

"I told her that I was concerned after meeting him in The Star Christian Association for Revelation of the Ecclesiastics," Kaze continued, "and was looking out for him. She was grateful, being so concerned herself. She told me that one night, instead of going to his psychiatrist's appointment, he came home really late from a meeting with Bowers. She told me that her parents and him had a horrible fight. He said some very cruel things about them. Diarchy stood in the shadows down the hall and listened to the entire thing. She told me that she was afraid for his life, and that he had gone crazy."

Detective Kaze sighed and looked at us. "You're not going to like this next part either, I'm afraid. She told me that he'd been constantly trailing Jessie Basle, and had become fixated on saving her granddaughter."

Detective Kaze looked over at me. "She meant you, Nat. He mentioned to her that one night, he even had a fight with a security guard in Duluth at the Basle Head Office. Just recently, she had seen a Smith and Wesson in his room. He told her that he had received it brand-new from one of the members of The Star Christian Association for Revelation of the Ecclesiastics as a Christmas present. Someone there is providing him with his traveling expenses and miscellaneous costs for shadowing Jessie Basle."

"Damn," I said, getting up and taking Jessie's hand.

"They'll be the death of me," she whispered. "I've just realized that we received a threatening letter from this guy. I'll get it for you when you're done."

"The guard was Hussein Arfratiat. He's one of National Alarm's best guys. He asked Kelsey late one night, before you three had left, why he was hanging around. Kelsey said something like that it was a free country, but not for Christians. Hussein told him that B&R is none of his business. He responded that what they do to the unborn is everybody's business. Hussein saw that he was really agitated, but he left without trouble.

"Kelsey travels freely from Duluth to Chicago to New York City to Cleveland, and it gets scarier. He has definitely become obsessed with Nat–and this is the kind of guy you're dealing with: Diarchy reports that he does one hundred lengths in his large backyard in-ground pool in Cleveland every day that he's home, as though he were in military training. He collects articles on the murder trial of your daughter. He said to Diarchy that he had been picked out by the Lord to fight for a Christian revolution in America. 'The Lord guides my life now,' he told her recently, 'and you worry yourself on my behalf for nothing.'"

I could tell that Jessie was in a turmoil.

"He calls himself a freak for Jesus. He has a large photograph of Nat in his bedroom, and beside it, smaller pictures of her in Vesey, Duluth, with you, Ms. Basle, with Diane, John Williams, your father, grandparents, and so forth. I've seen his room. It's spooky, and I'm not exaggerating. Diarchy says that his body is hardened like some lonely predator's."

"What can we do?" Jessie said.

"A restraining order would be of little value," Kaze replied, "except to expose me, especially since he is careful not to show himself around you. No charges could be laid which would stick. Plus, these fellows have excellent legal representation. My advice is to let me take him aside and force him to stop stalking you before something tragic happens."

"Any other ideas?" Jessie said.

"You could meet with his parents," Detective Kaze said, "but that could backfire."

"We could meet with Reverend Bowers," Jessie suggested. "Do you think he'll strong-arm me?"

Detective Kaze nodded. "He's a one-trick pony, so he will not deal fairly."

"Maybe he wouldn't want to be associated with a stalker."

"That might work, but it would force Kelsey underground with no friends. That could set him off."

We talked long into the day. The meeting ended with no resolution, and with a feeling of inevitable bleakness.

The following Monday, Ricicot Decoté's trial started. I brought I, the Jury by Mickey Spillane to read during the lulls. John had gotten it for me. He thought it was suitable, but meant it as a joke as well. I thought it was totally valid, and on two fronts. I was also reading Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift.

When I saw the long line of people who waited to get inside Room Fourteen-B at the Waupaca County Courthouse, I became disheartened, and thought it would be a circus. Jessie accompanied me, although she said it was only for the first two days.

Seven counts of murder-one had been charged against Ricicot, as well as five charges of doing an indecency to a human body, seven counts of abduction, eight counts of aggravated sexual assault, and six counts of kidnapping.

The crowd seemed gray to me, formless, fat faces of the curious American public. Jessie said that the national press had gathered in some numbers, in a conspiracy to make Ricicot Decoté famous.

"It sells newspapers," she said. "Our adventure in far-flung capitalism seems stupid at times, even to the point of endangering the foundation of civilization. Democracy leads to freedom, science, industrialization, and full-blown global capitalism. How could it be otherwise? Yet it seems also to lead to what this represents: a total lack of self-restraint on the part of the individual, like Ricicot Decoté, and on the part of society, like the press as they exploit a tragedy."

I thought we were too close to judge it fairly, and I didn't really agree with Jessie about it.

"Patrick Lymen is presiding," I said by way of a rejoinder, "and Grandpa says he's the most strict judge in the state."

Jessie sighed.

The place seemed surprisingly large for a county courtroom. It had long rows of single wooden chairs, which had been sectioned. Three rows at the front behind the prosecutors' table were separated by a wooden railing for families of the deceased, with another small section for the defense's side. We sat in the same row as Dad, Ingrid, Arthur, and Grandma and Grandpa, who were dressed in the Salvation Army uniform. This drove Jessie nuts.

"With the uniforms," she said to me many times, "they give the impression that they have no material aspirations, only spiritual ones."

In one way, Jessie was right. They were millionaires several times over. What also upset Jessie a great deal was that the Ruckerts had released a press statement to the effect that they had forgiven Ricicot Decoté, and hoped the state wouldn't seek the death penalty. Furthermore, they stated that they felt Mom wouldn't have wanted the death penalty. But while Mom had never believed in capital punishment, she had undergone a change of heart after she had discovered Ricicot's victims' gravesite.

Dad pointed out for me Rachel Decoté, Ricicot's wife, and Jim Breyer, his very overweight boss and uncle, who sat behind the defense table and whom I recognized from the papers. I sat next to Ingrid, with Jessie on my other side.

"I'm not sure I should have promised you to stay two days," Jessie whispered. "This will be boring and depressing. There's so much to do at the office."

A continual murmur rose for about fifteen minutes while spectators filed in and took their seats. John came up the center aisle toward me, and excused himself in his soft pleasant voice at each person he passed. He took a seat between Ingrid and me.

When he settled in, I kissed him briefly and introduced him to Jessie, who sat one seat away.

"I guess you're no stranger to these kinds of legal proceedings," she leaned over and whispered.

Most people would be mortified, but I laughed, although not too loudly. That was just Jessie's way of putting a thing behind her, and she probably thought that it would make John walk on eggshells when she was around. She didn't mind people being nervous around her at all.

I occupied myself by scanning the array of spectators. My eyes caught Kelsey Kratten's face. I grabbed Jessie's arm and told her, but when we looked back again, he was leaving. He had spotted me observing him.

Before we could get over that, they brought Ricicot in through a side door that led from the holding rooms for defendants. He was dressed in a blue suit and a colorful tie. He'd had a new, short haircut. They seated him beside his two state-provided defense lawyers, and a hush fell over the courtroom.

"They've put him in new clothes," Jessie whispered, "but he looks as greasy and dull as any person could."

I thought so too. He looked pathetic. Ricicot turned with a smile and looked straight at me. Actually, Jessie noticed it too.

"Who's the tall, thin man?" I asked Jessie.

"Kurt Knass, the lead lawyer."

I caught the look in the eyes of the mothers of the victims as Ricicot smiled at them.

"We'll be victims twice, and all of us right now wonder why he's still alive," Jessie whispered, following my glance, "but here he is, smiling with his lawyers. He enjoys the spectacle he has caused."

Ricicot looked at the jurors when they filed in, but now with a somber expression. He faced seven women and five men.

"Please rise!" a court clerk exclaimed in a booming voice.

The judge walked in, dressed in a black robe, and lifted his eyes over his thick glasses, focusing on the courtroom. He was a fifty-five-year-old man, I guessed, weighing maybe two hundred pounds and standing nearly six feet tall. He seemed to be surprised at how many of us were gathered. His hand ran through his gray hair, and with a shake of his head to one of the clerks, he sat.

"Let's begin," he said, as though to be cantankerous. He cleared his throat. The courtroom fell silent. "Are there any more legal formalities to go over before I start my statement of expectation?"

He looked up, awaiting a response, and both lawyers rose and shook their heads. The chief prosecutor had twice looked at his watch, and eyed the defendant's pew as if a member of Ricicot's family were missing.

"Look at that," Jessie whispered. "His mother hasn't come. I read in the press that they expected her on the first day. She has snubbed them. Imagine being responsible for bringing Ricicot Decoté into the world."

"I want to remind the jurors not to be confused by any rankling which may occur between the defense and prosecution," the judge said, and looked straight at the jurors. "Often, precedence sets the guidelines of what is, and what isn't, allowed in courtroom proceedings. At the end of summations, we will review what's to be done with all that you've heard, and how not to be influenced by what you may have heard that was later deemed inadmissible. However, more on that topic later."

For a brief moment, he scanned the entire courtroom before returning his attention to the jury box. "I'd like you to know that all of what happens in this courtroom is for you to render a verdict. You're not here for the victims, not for the press, and not for the public. The trial is being held so that you alone may sit in judgment on behalf of the people and the government. Only one expectation is demanded of you: that you be just. To help achieve this, my office will assist you in any way possible. If you need to have something clarified, just ask your court clerk to speak with me on your behalf."

He looked at his rostrum notes and made a notation. "Mr. Daylke?" he said.

Richard Daylke rose. He was forty-one years old, five feet, ten inches tall, with short, dirty-blonde hair. He had a distinguished face, and his gray suit fit well. However, he looked exhausted; the strain showed in his slightly bent posture and his tired eyes.

"Good morning, members of the jury," he said.

These six words came out with a mild stutter. He took a deep breath, as though a little overwhelmed, and straightened his posture with an effort.

"You'll find the evidence as disturbing as it is incontestable," he said. "Indeed, it won't be contested." He looked at the defense table, and, for effect, shook his head in disgust. "Ricicot Decoté's sexual appetite, as outlandish as we'll show you that it is, l-l-l-led him into abduction, bondage, torture, mutilation, death, and dismemberment. There will be no doubt left in your mind of his guilt, nor, I doubt, of his blameworthiness."

His fingers rubbed his thumb in a nervous habit. He stepped up closer to the jurors, but not past the podium. "The defense has pleaded, 'N-n-not Guilty,' and we know they will try to make a case for innocence by insanity. We will show that Ricicot Decoté's brutal murder s-s-s-spree was an attempt to satisfy his need for sex, much the same way that a mafia boss might satisfy his greed for money by brute force."

It seemed to me that every so often, he would get caught up on a word, stutter for ten seconds or so, and then continue on in a normal manner of speaking. While at first I expected it to be distracting, I realized that I focused on his every word, and so did everybody else.

"Ricicot Decoté is a t-t-t-torturer with sexual goals instead of financial or political ones." He looked from juror to juror while he talked. "We'll show that Ricicot took care not to get caught. He selected a well-hidden and ins-s-s-sulated gravesite for his torture arena and mass grave. He picked it with intelligence; as perverted as that sounds, we'll show that it is all true. Ricicot has no history of mental illness, and acted as an individual would if he planned an armed robbery: with forethought and deliberation. Just as a thief might kill bank employees so that there would be no witnesses, Ricicot, killed his victims for the same reason. His motivation wasn't money, but rather s-s-sex. We will demonstrate that Ricicot Decoté is no more than a common criminal. Instead of s-s-seven banks heists, he committed s-s-seven fatal rapes."

He stepped back, raised his hand to his face, and rubbed his chin. He returned to his desk and read some written material that lay on top of three thick legal books, then returned to the podium.

"Ricicot wanted exotic, s-s-sadistic relations, which he took by force–and terrified of the consequences, he disposed of the evidence. While it's true that he performed an almost religious ceremony over his victims after they were dead, before you say to yourselves, 'He must be mad,' remember this: his single-minded motivation remained sexual satisfaction."

He paused, walking over to his desk again. He took a short sip of water and turned to face the jurors again. He obviously did this to calm himself, but despite it, his stutter became worse.

"Many people know by analogy," he continued, "that you have no moral claim on s-s-somebody else's money or possessions. We are guaranteed these freedoms. Tainted money will do you no good. Money taken by force or fraud is known as blood money, and comes with its own form of a curse. You, the members of the jury, are thinking, 'Yes, but what does this have to do with Ricicot?'"

He cleared his throat and again stepped up to the podium, but this time lowered his voice. "I'll tell you. If a man or a woman s-s-steals, we don't think them ins-s-sane. We understand why someone would want to s-s-steal someone else's possessions–greed! We work for our money. It provides some of our needs. We reach in our own way for many forms of excellence in our paid employment. Many of us pursue other forms of excellence–we work hard and aren't paid; let's call it volunteer work.

"All of these victims of Ricicot had loved ones. They are here today in this courtroom, waiting for you to have the courage to do the right thing. S-s-sometimes, with love, we get to the spirit by way of the body. This is called romantic or e-e-erotic love. Most people recognize that it's not love merely because it is s-s-sex. Love and s-s-sex aren't equivalent. One has no moral claim on somebody else's body, no matter their s-s-sexual needs and no matter how bizarre those needs are."

I could barely hear him now. "S-s-sex is s-s-sex and it isn't love," he continued, closer now to the jurors. "If you have not earned it through love, it will only be the physical act, not the spiritual act. S-s-sex taken by force is called rape. We don't say, this man raped, therefore he is insane–whether he did it for sex or for power. We know that he stole what wasn't his to have, and this horrible act produces its own form of moral worthlessness and criminal s-s-sanctions. We will show you that this is a killer before you, a rapist, an empty shell of a common criminal; a man who rejected spiritual values, rejected God and religion, rejected all forms of help, and goodness itself. He thought himself clever enough to take what he wanted by force. He did so with the reasoning of a vulgar man. Ricicot believed that he could have something for nothing–that's all."

He looked each of the members of the jury in the eye. I became heartened by his words and looked at Jessie, who nodded.

"When we present our case," he continued, "we hope you will, each one of you, sentence Ricicot to death. If you do so, you will s-s-send a message to s-s-society that we will no longer tolerate this kind of crime simply because of its s-s-seeming madness. You will bequeath to the victims this gift: that they didn't die for nothing. If you do so, you will fulfill your duty as jurors. You will change the way America looks at serial killers. Thank you."

"Excellent," Jessie whispered to me.

"Bailiff," Judge Lymen said when Richard Daylke sat. "We will have a break for the jury."

We rose and headed to the hall.

"Let's hope he'll be convicted," I said.

"I don't know about that," Jessie returned. "Shall we all go down to the cafeteria?" Everyone seemed in agreement, and we made our way through the crowd. "I don't think anyone will buy the line that what Ricicot Decoté's motivations are equivalent to those of a bank robber," Jessie said. "I believe it's true, mind you, and very clever of Mr. Daylke, but the jury won't buy it. They're already thinking that he's as mad as a march hare–just look at him."

No seats were left in the small cafeteria, and we stood while Dad and John went for juice, tea, and coffee.

"What's this?" Jessie whispered to me. "Anti-abortionist at four o'clock."

I didn't know whether to laugh or be alarmed. We watched a large, sad-looking woman approach. She had curly brown hair, wore a lot of makeup, and had ardent blue eyes.

Jessie made a heavy sigh, obviously bracing herself for a verbal assault.

"She looks all right," I said.

"Jessie Basle?" the woman asked in a soft voice.

Jessie took a step back and paled. Her eyes flitted right and left for a court guard in the cafeteria. I readied myself just in case I was wrong. The woman stepped closer and nodded to Grandma and Grandpa.

"I wanted to meet you," the lady said, "and to thank you."

"Thank me?" Jessie said.

"My daughter is Wendy Alpine, and if not for your daughter's bravery, she'd be dead. Cathy is a true heroine."

The color came back to Jessie's face, and she breathed in relief. So did I.

"Thank you so much," Jessie said. "This is Catherine's daughter, Natalie."

"I thought so. You are so beautiful. I'm Janet Jonovich." Jessie introduced everyone. We all shook hands. "A wonderful woman such as your mother is probably watching over us now," the woman continued, looking me in the eyes. "Bless you all. You must be upset to be here, but God will punish the evil-doers of the world."

"Thank you, it's nice of you to say so," Jessie said. I knew that she didn't believe it for a second. If anything, she thought the opposite was true. I wondered if she was going to pick a fight. One thing about Jessie was that she was willing to argue in any situation.

"I didn't mean to disturb you," Janet continued. "I just wanted you to know that my daughter would have died a horrible death if not for your Catherine." She began to weep, but managed to say one more "thank you."

"Will Wendy testify?" I asked, wiping my own eyes.

The woman recovered herself, and I could tell that she drew strength from my smile.

"She will," Janet said, "but not today."

"Wendy knew Ricicot?" Jessie asked.

"He'd been her boss at the gas bar. That day, he asked her for a ride home. He lied that his truck had broken down–but you know that. My God, it's so horrible. She has a hard time with the whole matter. The nightmares come every night."

"He's quite the monster," Jessie said, and turned to look at John and Dad. They joined us and passed everyone's drinks around. Jessie introduced them to Janet, and they shook hands.

"Society will have to spend millions of dollars on this farce," Jessie continued. "We can't get the police to enforce the restraining orders against abusive spouses, but Ricicot has the best lawyers money can buy. Legal aid is one of the great safety nets of our society–if you're a criminal." I laughed, but noticed that I was the only one. "They take our money to get them into jail in the first place," Jessie added, "then they take our money to defend them over and over, and afterwards, they take more money for the appeals process."

"We can't just send people to prison without a trial," Grandma said testily.

"Who said anything about that?" Jessie returned. "I'd be satisfied with a fair trial. The courts have perverted justice with the appeals system. A trial can go on in this country for a century. Moreover, there is no real punishment or rehabilitation if we do get them inside. We run the prison system like a cattle house. There is more concern out there with the rights of protoplasm than with people who are victims of violent crime or the criminals themselves."

Wendy's mother had lost her color and taken a step back. "Disrespect for life is the root of all evil," she said.

"I thought that cliché went, 'The root of all evil is money,'" Jessie returned in an icy voice. "Besides, having billions of people on the planet is disrespect for life, and the existence of civilized society is at stake."

"Time to go," Grandma said, and with Grandpa holding her hand, they left with Dad, Ingrid, and Arthur.

When everyone had gone except for John and I, Jessie chuckled. "Bumpkins," she whispered. "They think every human life is worth the last dying breath of our planet." She looked directly at John. "Religion often breeds ignorance, even in otherwise educated people. I hope your head isn't too far up in heaven. You should talk to Christian Ruckert on that front. He has it together about the role of belief."

Good to her word, Jessie spent one more day at the trial and then returned to Duluth. We talked about the problem of Kelsey Kratten by phone, and decided that we should tell Dad and John about it.

"John is handsome," she said before she hung up, "and looks like his mom, not his dad."

With Jessie, that was as good as it got. She also told me that she was going to let Detective Kaze know that we had seen Kelsey again.

John had March break coming up, and we planned to stay together at a hotel for a week while the trial was in progress. By Tuesday of that week, I was completely used to waking up beside him. It felt so natural that I was surprised by it.

The prosecution's presentation took more than a month and a half. They called forth the mother of every victim–except Jessie, who had been uncooperative.

At the time, the state of Wisconsin was considering a separate hearing for the sentencing phase if Ricicot was found guilty in the first degree, and they intended to ask for the death penalty for the murder of a police officer. Jessie agreed that they could call on her then.

As Jessie described it, they took a gamble when lumping Mom in with the other victims, but with good reasoning. Ricicot was clearly not insane when he'd stabbed Mom: he was angry, and afraid of getting caught. The prosecutors were confident that the jurors would see it their way. Even if the defense said he had been crazy with the girls he'd assaulted, tortured, killed, and mutilated, he was clearly not so when causing Mom's death. This way, the prosecutors hope to get the first degree verdict for all the murder counts. Jessie thought it was a good bet.

By the time the defense began its case, John and I were often sharing a room at the Dorcore Appleton Hotel, a place we found that was comfortable, with a good restaurant. Even Jessie used it a few times. She came to the trial any time there was an important issue or witness–but the amount of evidence against Ricicot was so overwhelming that she came less and less. It seemed that after the three expert forensic psychologists testified for the state, it was over.

"They'd be tough to refute," Jessie commented after hearing the details from me.

The psychologists all said essentially the same thing: while Ricicot was clinically insane, he knew at the time of his torture sessions that he was murdering a human being and doing wrong, and while killing Mom, he was trying to escape justice.

Monday, April 20 was the day that forensic psychologist Maria Vitoulis testified for the defense. I think it was the turning point in the trial; it was what changed everything forever. I was there with Dad, Grandpa, and Ingrid. Grandma and Kate were on a trip to Chicago.

Maria Vitoulis radiated confidence. She was an attractive witness as well, and wore little makeup and dressed unprovocatively without looking used-up or old fashioned. She exuded common sense and middle class values. She was the type of woman who Jessie always said could carry the weight of the world on her shoulders. She stood about five feet eight inches, and had vibrant black hair. There was another thing about her, and the defense brought it up right away: she had three children, one boy and two girls, and both of the girls were teenagers. She often consulted her notes to give accurate quotes, and she told a tale that day which, if true, proved that Ricicot was completely brainsick on a daily basis.

During the prosecution's case, Kurt Knass had seemed to Jessie, John, and me to be inept, but Dad kept disagreeing with us.

"He's a player," Dad said more than once.

Kurt made few objections, and never once behaved dramatically. A few days after his defense case began, I had changed my mind completely. Dad had been right. I was scared we were going to lose, but kept that to myself.

Kurt's style seemed to suit his obtuse logic. He would put his hand through his thin hair and rub his face as though he were lost in thought, even in the middle of a question. It gave the sense that he fought a handicap worst than Richard Daylke's stutter. With Maria Vitoulis, for instance, he faced her with a genuine look of confusion. I'd grown wary of him. Everything he said was coded. He was trim, tanned, and healthy-looking too, perhaps forty years of age or so, and he smiled at exactly the right times. His fine, sandy brown hair was swept in a neat crew cut across his forehead. His face had deep creases around the eyes, highlighted by his wide, thick glasses.

Like Dad, he was naturally handsome and his face held wisdom. He'd been around the block, and it showed.

"One of the conclusions you reached is that he has a psychotic contempt for life?" Kurt asked Maria Vitoulis, after he established the amount of time she'd spent interviewing Ricicot. "Can you explain that?"

"His contempt is not limited to women," she answered. "If that were the case, my diagnosis would have been much different. I'd have tended to agree more with the three psychiatrists who spoke ahead of me for the prosecution. Like those three fine doctors, I think Ricicot knew right and wrong in a classical sense. I'm not sure that it is the issue, though. As a teenager, he assaulted young boys before he moved on to girls. The issue for him here isn't sex, but which of the sexes produced louder screams while he was finding relief from his torment. In his judgment, woman by far scream louder. He isn't more sexually attracted to them; the volume and length of their screaming is the main utility to him. He just wants relief.

"Let me tell you a story. It's just a regular day in Ricicot's life. It's gruesome, and horrible beyond belief, but mundane and absurd as well."

She took out some notes. The judge asked to see them, and then returned them after several minutes.

"More than a year ago," she said, "on April 4, 1986, to be exact, Ricicot was sitting with his wife at supper. This was months before he was arrested. Their house is on the outskirts of Appleton, in Outagamie County. It's a small, undistinguished two-story bungalow, and the inside seems to contradict the outside. I've visited there several times to speak to his wife, Rachael.

"Inside it's bright and meticulous, whereas from the street it looks rather dumpy. The day that I'm telling you about, Rachael served fried chicken, green peas in white cream sauce, and a small baked potato. She has kept an exacting daily diary. That day, Ricicot came to the table shirtless and barefoot, wearing only dirty ripped jeans without underwear.

"Rachael was dressed in a yellow cotton skirt with her brownish-blonde hair pulled back tightly behind her head. As you can see, she is a thin woman–over five seven in height, but weighing less than a hundred pounds. Her breasts are a Double D. Ricicot paid a small fortune for them to be enlarged; he insisted on it before they married. He told me that it was for his fantasies. Sex with his wife is hallucinatory. He fantasizes about the violent rape of other women, his former victims, while he has intercourse with her. Her IQ is well under eighty, and she has no idea that her only purpose for him is to serve as camouflage against anyone finding out about his nefarious activities. In reality, he hates her. He met her through his uncle, Jim Breyer, four years back. He had just been divorced and was in search of a new wife; his ex-wife left him while he spent time in jail for the rape of an adolescent girl in Waukesha, just outside of Milwaukee. The victim, Amber MacBee, had just turned fourteen when he sweet-talked her into a walk through a secluded area. He pulled a knife on her, cut her once on the back, and then raped her as she cried out. The remembrance of it still excites him.

"Uncle Jim Breyer was there on the night to which I am referring. Rachael likes him. He was wearing faded dress pants with a pale tan polyester shirt. He was freshly shaven, but he has a missing front tooth and wild hair. Rachael wrote, 'Sometimes when Ricicot is here drinking with him, he drinks too much.' Ricicot told me more than once in our interviews that he thinks Uncle Jim is nothing but a drunk, but if it is true, Jim had managed to keep this hidden from Rachael.

"Ricicot and Jim were drinking beer from cans. They both had a lot to drink. Ricicot was fiercely rubbing his temple; Rachael made a note of that in her diary. I asked him about it. 'The throbbing was starting,' he answered me. For the last few days at that time, his headaches had been growing in intensity and lasting longer. Soon he would be forced to find relief, even though he doesn't want to–but it's the only thing that works: the voice of a torture victim screaming while he ejaculates repeatedly, often a dozen or more times.

"Jim was telling a story about a sermon he had once given. Long ago, he was a minister in a small church in Westville, Washington. Rachael had written down the words, so for accuracy's sake I will read them exactly: 'I'm anxious to stand under judgment of the Lord,' Breyer said, 'and I will tell you why. Since I stayed so long in New York City, I came to believe that Armageddon, the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, and the return of Jesus will happen in our lifetime.'

She also wrote that she loved when Jim preached to her. Ricicot told me that his wife is devoted to Jim, and calls him Reverend Jim.

Ricicot has a penis which, even flaccid, measures nearly twelve inches. He said that when he was a boy, his older step-sisters raped him repeatedly, screaming, yelling, and laughing at him. It was relentless teasing combined with assault, and it only stopped when he had left home.

"Ricicot has told me that when he did leave, at thirteen, he moved from one nightmare to another. Uncle Jim offered to take him in, and he accepted what he thought was an offer of kindness made by a religious person. But Uncle Jim immediately began a continuous campaign to get him senseless with alcohol and drugs in the evenings. After weeks of such behavior, he started to rape Ricicot after he had passed out.

"'When he opened the second seal,' Jim said that night, quoting Revelations 6:34 verbatim as Rachael reported in her diary, 'I heard the third creature say, Come! And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that men should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.'"

Dr. Vitoulis was consulting her notes continually now. Not a sound could be heard in the courtroom; her story riveted the court. Dad and Ingrid were visibly disturbed. I was angry, and I think Jessie would have blown a fuse. She didn't even believe in mental illness. Many times she had said, "The mind can't have an illness: mind is a theory of consciousness, only the brain can be ill."

"Ricicot knew that his uncle had a great hatred against the government, gays, and immigrants," Dr. Vitoulis continued. "He firmly believes in the advent of a Jewish Conspiracy to rule the world, and the coming end of America. Ricicot has stated that he hated Uncle Jim for his hypocrisy and for what he had done to him in the past. Rachael thinks Uncle Jim is a prophet.

"That night, Ricicot rose from the table while Jim was quoting the bible and took off his pants. He had no underwear on. Completely naked, he began to masturbate in front of his uncle and his wife, tuning himself out of their presence even while he stood before them in the kitchen. I asked him about this incident. He told me it was no incident at all, and that when Uncle Jim and Rachael were there quoting scripture, he always pretended that he was alone.

"When he has a headache, he had to masturbate or he would kill them. I asked him what he was thinking while he was masturbating that day. He answered that he was recalling Mary Hynes." Dr. Vitoulis read from another page. "I thought a lot about her back then,' he reported to me. 'I wondered if she was alive. I was hoping she hadn't gone to the police. I think she must have liked what I did to her, or that she drowned in the Black River and her body just hadn't been found yet. I was also fantasizing that I was tying up a young girl from work, Wendy Alpine. I was cutting into her with a long blade. She is beautiful, and would be afraid. She worked with me at the gas and variety stop that I managed for Uncle Jim. She's a newly married teenager. I pinched her at work a few times, and she howled. I know she would be a great screamer. I could almost hear her screaming as I whacked my dong faster and faster. I knew Rachael and Uncle Jim had left me alone in the kitchen. I could no longer hear their stupid voices. I was cutting one of Wendy's arms off, and she was screaming for all the life in her. As I came, the world receded and my headache lessened. When I came out of my dream, I saw I spewed all over the floor."

She stopped and looked over at Kurt. "It's hard to believe," he said quietly.

"I fear it represents a typical day," she responded, looking at the jury, "especially when the headaches, as he called them, were coming. Ricicot told me that the next day, April 5, he drove his truck up the familiar road to the Black River Forest Reserve in Marathon County. He arrived at the fork in the lumber road that led to his cluster gravesite, and parked his truck out of sight. He took his clothes off, except his boots, and made his way to the gravesite with a small collapsible army shovel. He walked carefully, as though he was on a sacred spot.

"He visited Denise first. She was the first victim he brought here, but she was a hardened prostitute and wouldn't scream until she'd been cut into 'a horribly bloody mess,' to use his words. The gravesite has been forged into his consciousness. When the screams of pain finally came from her, Ricicot said that he achieved complete relief; of all of them, she had been the best one. Her amazing scream of terror and pain at the end, knowing that she would soon die, didn't last long–a minute or so–but in that time, Ricicot experienced absolute joy.

"He dug up Denise's body that night and masturbated over it. He claimed he didn't see or smell the rotting corpse, but Denise as she was when she was living. Then he covered it up again. He recalled Belinda, the second girl he had kidnapped. She had also been one of the best. She had been brave, he said, and screamed at full volume from start to end. He remembered vividly. He had kept her living for over ten hours after the first cuts. He dug her up next and masturbated on her rotting form, then covered her up. He moved on to the next, and the next, repeating his actions."

"The night before he abducted Wendy Alpine and killed Detective Basle," Kurt asked, "did he also visit the gravesite?"

"Normally, he'd do so nightly," she returned, "but by chance, he had been away in Port Stevens for several weeks with Jim Breyer. He hadn't learned that the police had discovered his gravesite. As you know, they were keeping it quiet. When Jim and Ricicot returned, they passed through Waupaca on the way home, and he noticed the inordinate amount of police. That night, in the dark, he traveled to the proximity of the gravesite to observe. Spotlights revealed what that he suspected."

She looked up at the jurors. "He wept when he saw what they'd done to the relics of his past victims. Afterward, he sat in his cab and drank Country Punch until he was in a stupor. He realized that he should try to escape. He thought, conversely, that he should kill Rachael and Uncle Jim, both whom he hated–but instead, he remembered Wendy Alpine. He wanted to take her with him when he left. She remained all he had ever dreamt of in a screamer; sweet and innocent, and a true angel. He could sacrifice her, bury her somewhere else. He knew a place, he would start a new gravesite. He understood the risk, but he knew that Wendy had always been eager to oblige him, and that she would come with him if the pretext was right. He realized the danger in it as well, yet danger remained only as an unformulated idea in his head."

"What is the technical name for what Ricicot Decoté has?"

"He's sick," she said. "Exceedingly so. He's sick on so many fronts that to name his sickness is to diminish it. Yet for all that, he is a simple antisocial sociopath, but one with a personality disorder, overall schizophrenic hallucinations, and a displaced sexual deviant disorder."

Chapter Ten

Dr. Maria Vitoulis' testimony lasted the whole week. On Friday evening, I drove back to Duluth, but late Saturday evening, John phoned and said I had to come to St. Paul on Sunday.

"I just have to see you," he said.

I was reading The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco that weekend, and could hardly put it down for him. When I asked Jessie about whether I should go or not, she advised me to go. However, she showed no curiosity about why he would be so insistent that I come. I knew something was up.

I phoned Dad and told him what John wanted. I lied and said that I didn't feel like traveling, especially since I would see John in Appleton on Wednesday evening.

"You should go," Dad said.

That gave it away. I knew John was going to propose, and that he had talked to Jessie and Dad about it. I was out of my mind with excitement.

On Sunday, April 26, when I arrived at John's apartment, he was working on papers written by grade ten students on one of his favorite Dickens' novels, A Tale of Two Cities.

John's power to interpret narrative as a primary source for the voice of human suffering gave him a unique understanding of both the classics and serious literature in the modern era. I deeply respected his inner voice on books. For instance, Jessie had recently given me An Accidental Man by Iris Murdoch to read. John hadn't only already read it, but he had read her other books as well, and knew a lot about her.

When I saw him, I knew that he was excited, and nervous too. I kissed him and read the top page on his desk out loud: "The overall historical depiction of the unrest and mismanagement of Paris, according to some critical commentary, is melodramatic and overstated."

"What do you know in grade ten?" I asked rhetorically, sounding more like Jessie every day.

"That one is an excellent student," John said.

His apartment was spotless, but it was certainly a bachelor's place. One time, I'd teased him that his pad was so clean that he was one small step from madness. He hadn't taken that joke well at all, and had made an attempt at some changes.

What fascinated me so much about John was his kind-hearted assumption about people–except for his dad–and his honesty which bordered on the exact. His values were almost the same as Dad's.

A large crystal vase with beautiful, tall tulips, perhaps two dozen in all, sat on the main coffee table, and another bouquet was on the kitchen counter, full of bright carnations and orchids. A cool breeze came from the window in the kitchen as I made myself a drink of ice water, taking note of the champagne in the fridge.

I hated the picture in the center of the wall over his dull brown couch. It was of a small fishing boat, lost in the violent waves of a sea-storm. On the other hand, a nice thing about his place were the wall-to-wall windows with neutral curtains. That day they were opened two thirds of the way, showing his balcony. The windows were spotless, as was the balcony, and even the barbeque. He was pretty bad that way, but I discounted it entirely. I'll tell you why: in bed, he had no shame and was exciting; often he was in the lead. I took it as a good sign.

"You can almost smell the formaldehyde," I said, looking at him as he fidgeted throughout my inspection. He flushed, and though I knew it was mean, I laughed at him. I intended to negotiate hard to gain complete control over domestic decor. One had to be ruthless with heterosexual men in this regard, or it would be a lifetime of sports games and ugly brown couches.

"On a Sunday like this," he said, "when I was a boy, there might be a fire lit in the fireplace and the smell of a home-cooked meal. The house was always impeccably clean. That doesn't mean anything."

Today, I had come looking glamorous and rich. Jessie had helped me; we colluded without talking about it. My red dress fit perfectly–it was tight, as though I had just arrived from some gala event where only beautiful and sexy people go. The effect was heightened by the translucence of it. The outline of my breasts were highlighted, and you could see my nipples–I wore no bra. My buns were firm and smooth–I had on a thong. My long, reddish hair fell to the low-cut back with complete liberty. It made an indecent impression, even witchy. I would have never appeared like this in public.

"Where shall we go, lover-boy?" I continued teasing him. "Let's pray that at least the bedroom isn't as bad." I came over, kissed him on the mouth, and slipped off my dress in one unrestrained action, so that I wore only my red thong. I took his hand and pulled him toward the bedroom. When we were together under the covers, I could tell that he was trying to draw up the courage to ask me, but I began to kiss and fondle him.

"Nat, I love you," he said after we made love, "and I want you to marry me."

"I'll have to ask Jessie first." I said, giggling for a moment. I was giddy with happiness. "The look on your face is precious," I said further. "Jessie says that you're tame like my dad. Is that true?" I kissed him and giggled again. "Get that frown off your face, Johnny-boy–that's the closest any Christian ever gets to a compliment from Jessie. She likes Dad, and he may be the only one besides you who she does."

"But I'm not asking Jessie to marry me."

"That was a question?" He nodded. "Show me the ring." He rose out of the bed and walked naked to his dresser. "Nice bum, chum," I called out. He slipped back under the covers and gave me a small black jewelry box.

"It's beautiful, John," I said, studying it. Jessie had schooled me a little on diamonds, and he must have mortgaged his life for this one. It was singular, not that large, but it was flawless.

"Be my wife." His voice trembled, and I was teary-eyed.

"I've never had a man ask to marry me while I had no clothes on," I said, as lightheartedly as I could muster. "I hardly think I could refuse, especially since when you're naked you sort of remind me of the new James Bond."

For a moment, I laid my head on his shoulders. The two people I wanted to phone about the news were in cahoots with my groom-to-be–even Ingrid would know by now. They'd all long suspected that I'd set my sight on John as a husband, and it was true. Only John himself hadn't made any assumptions about me. I had been only fourteen years old when I first entertained a dream of marrying him. The details weren't important to me, but to be lying beside him with the engagement ring on my hand was impossibly sweet. I didn't want it to end.

Through May of that year, it was unseasonably cold. Kurt Knass preceded to bring out expert after expert to testify. The goods they delivered were almost as good as Maria Vitoulis', and I grew depressed that Ricicot was going to be found not guilty.

At the time, John gave me one of his favorite books to read, The Plumed Serpent by D. H. Lawrence. In May I also finished Amores by Ovid, the most popular of the Roman poets.

On Friday, June 5, Kurt Knass gave his closing statement. All along, he had contested little of the evidence, and spent his time–weeks–cross-examining the psychiatric experts about the gravesite: the ritual aspect of it, the mutilation ceremony, the screaming victims, the state of Ricicot's mind, and souvenirs of the victim's body parts that Ricicot had taken away with him.

As I mentioned, his face held a look of compassion like Dad's; even though he seemed to always smile, it had a sadness to it.

Jessie had repeatedly warned me: "People don't share our views of insanity," she said. "They think it's a literal disease, with a cause, diagnosis, and cure. They don't understand that Freud did to psychiatry what Marx did to economics. Neither of those evil geniuses ultimately believed in individual moral choice. People are just instruments in the game, slaves to their subconscious, pawns to economic forces. Many people believe in this nonsense. Science practices voodoo too."

You could see why everybody was unnerved when Jessie spoke. She was harsh, and she would pick a fight about anything, from any point of view, at any time.

Once, a young salesmen at an office party asked her about what she thought of Ayn Rand. He was considered our resident intellectual, and was reading one of her non-fiction books, The Virtue of Selfishness, but he was also wearing a gold crucifix. I noticed Jessie's glance fall to it.

"Are you a libertarian?" she asked sharply.

He shook his head, looking bewildered. I think he really was one.

"Rand is mostly just an angry zealot like Marx, Christ, and Freud before her," Jessie said. "They were all wannabe liberators, desiring the overthrow of whatever current system of oppression was in place. Furthermore, she's no better than the intellectuals she preaches against. In her system, the scapegoats–the parasites who are ruining our chance at earthly paradise–are the poor and the lazy, that is, the unproductive. She even mentions the blind and handicapped, for heaven's sake. The parasites also include critics of her weird version of capitalism, which, I take it, is an economy not deterred in any way by democracy.

"In Marx's system, it's the rich who are the parasites. That includes the bourgeoisie and the capitalists, who must be eliminated to find a true socialism, a classless society not deterred in any way by democracy.

"In Christ's system, it's the non-believers, the powerful, greedy pagans, who are wrecking the fun. To him, 'right' is living something as close to animal anarchy as possible, like St. Francis of Assisi. The ideal is to be willingly poor, protected by a church who will bring about a theocracy not deterred in any way by democracy.

"In Freud's system, it's those who would repress our emotions, and their oppressive social apparatus, who are the meanies. They are preventing the willy-nilly leviathan of the subconscious from being freed to express its true serial-killing self, and being treated by the therapeutic state with a medicine not deterred in any way by democracy.

"You should find some democrats to read. Let's say Rousseau, Montesquieu, Locke, Popper, or someone like that. Is that enough for now?"

He nodded and left, quite red-faced. I was sure he never talked to her again.

At first glance, no consistency seemed to exist in her views, but that wasn't altogether true. I found her views unerringly rational on the whole, but specifically, they sometimes went over the top. It depended on how angry she was.

The young employee who asked about Ayn Rand wore his hair long, and it got back to Jessie that he smoked marijuana. Even though she was sympathetic to young people, he got no quarter. She hated the so-called "illegal drugs" and fully supported the government's war on them; if someone else asked her about capitalism or Christianity in public, she wouldn't have normally responded in quite such an aggressive tone. She also believed that men and women in business must build and fight to keep life-long reputations, which she called personal trademarks and which included, most importantly, truth, honor and self-management. Therefore, in her view, business people didn't have the freedom for any superficial manifestations of personal individuality, a rule broken by that young libertarian employee with long hair and the need to toke with his fellow employees. She also believed that money was a means to an end, and that the ostentatious display of wealth proved that a person had no substantive worth.

"You've heard the psychological testimony presented by doctors for both sides," Kurt said, beginning his closing statements. He walked up behind Ricicot, placing his hands on his shoulders and then pointing to the prosecution table. "They've demonized this human being; that's the first thing I've got to tell you." He stepped back toward the jurors. "As Mr. Daylke has mentioned countless times, we don't dispute the facts of the case. We don't believe you need to be told so many times that they are uncontested. We don't think you are stupid."

He turned and again looked at the prosecutor's table, raising his hand and shaking his finger as though to make another point, then he withdrew it as though he'd changed his mind. "We think you're intelligent enough to know there's such a thing as insane, crazy, nuts, and yes, this young man has it–whatever it is, he's sick. You know it! The end."

I squeezed Dad's hand as Kurt spoke. Even I couldn't disagree. Ricicot seemed as mad as mad could be. Jessie had refused to come on the closing days. She was certain we were going to be defeated, but Dad had disagreed.

"Have faith, pumpkin," he said constantly.

"Horrible things happened, and Ricicot did them," Kurt continued. "The defendant himself is appalled by his despicable acts." Again he walked to the defense table and put his hands on his defendant. "Ricicot says two things: he doesn't know why he did it, and would likely do it again if given no treatment. He gets piercing headaches that are only alleviated with horrible sadistic bloodshed. He told you that he's dangerous and needs help. Ricicot is a brutal serial killer and a sexual predator."

Kurt came to the podium with a Bible in his hand. "Which of you will be the first to kill him? Ricicot fantasized his whole adult life about sexually assaulting and binding helpless victims. He fantasized about it with such absolute frequency that, when he crossed over the line between fantasy and reality, he didn't even notice it. One more death. What's one more death? Kill. Kill."

He stepped back and stood near the prosecutor's table. "How often does Mr. Daylke fantasize about ending Ricicot's life? Maybe he has crossed over the line between fury and compassion."

Several jurors nodded in agreement, which made me sick with a sense of looming defeat.

"Mr. Daylke says Ricicot is no more or less than a violent common criminal," Kurt continued, "like, let's say, any felon. If you think for even a moment, you will understand that this really can't be so. No professional criminal kills for the sexual excitement of a victim's fear reflected in a scream. I won't suggest to you that Ricicot has a soft redeemable side to him and that he should be salvaged." Kurt coughed. "Excuse me."

He took a white handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his forehead. He casually stepped to his desk and drank some water. "I have younger brothers and sisters who still live at home, who are, with the exception of Catherine Ruckert, the same age as Ricicot's victims. I'll not admonish you to think what I, too, sometimes think. This is a sadistic person who is mentally ill. He is insane. He isn't like you and he isn't like me. It's not his fault that he got sick. He isn't responsible for his behavior. In your hearts, you know it. No one would choose this."

Kurt coughed again and looked down at his notes. "How many of you have gone to bed every night for the last decade and fantasized about killing some poor, helpless, tied up victim, so that you could have sexual relief? How many among you here have ever had such a fantasy at all?" He raised his voice. "Ever?"

Again, he cleared his throat. "I know the answer. None of you. But, how many of you in your life been tempted to steal or have fantasized about stealing, or perhaps fantasized about getting rich through a pyramid or some other illegal scheme? I know none of you really believe that Ricicot is a common criminal like a bank robber, who operates from impulses of greed. He's so mentally ill that not even the state's expert psychiatric witnesses could escape that fact. Everything points to it. He's psychotic, and if you kill him, you will–at the price of wiping out the chance of him ever getting help–kill a pathetic human being who isn't responsible for his acts. Ricicot was given little in this life: no love, no parental guidance, no direction–society failed him. He was seduced in his pre-adolescence by step-sisters, abused by his uncle in early adulthood, and betrayed by the friends he sought–fortuity abandoned him."

Again, Kurt held up the Bible. "To kill him would be the socially expedient way, but no genuine human being can condone killing a fellow human being who is suffering from a disease such as Ricicot has. I know there are such people among you. If you show mercy for Ricicot, you can have it both ways: you can give society security, and you can show compassion. If you find Ricicot innocent by way of insanity, then he will be placed in a maximum security institution for the criminally insane, and therefore be treated for his affliction. His stay will be an indefinite sentence, and you need not fear him hurting anyone again. He will be denied his liberty, and you can rest assured that he won't be returned to society as he is today. Mr. Daylke says you must kill, but you need not kill. Don't bow down–instead, stand tall. You need not kill to get justice. It is wrong to kill another person; that is why we are here. Let's not repeat it. Don't do it in the name of vengeance. Only heaven holds these keys. Bless you all, and thank you for your patience."

I looked over at Dad, who smiled bravely. I knew he had the same conflicting concerns as those that Kurt had pointed out to the jurors: he wanted to forgive, and he wanted revenge.

As for me, I thought that Ricicot was a waste of human skin. Why bother to treat him? What was the point? Kurt Knass' arguments should have fallen on deaf ears. It could be worse, too. What if Ricicot had fooled the psychologists and psychiatrists? What if he wasn't sick, as Kurt contended, but just evil as Jessie claimed?

After all, her contention had always been that there was no such thing as mental illness–that it was a metaphor, and there could only be physical illnesses.

That evening, I returned to Duluth. The common wisdom was that the jurors would deliberate over the whole week. However, when we went to lunch on Thursday, Jessie said something that raised my hopes.

"There's dissent among the jurors," she said. "That's why it's taking so long. It's the first time in months that I have hope."

The next day was a bright, sunny day in downtown Duluth. The sky wasn't marred by a single cloud–or none, at least, which could be seen from my office window. Since I'd heard Kurt Knass' closing statement, I had been worried. For days, I had been a bumbling idiot: all I could think of, all I could focus on, was the verdict. That morning I had woken up with an awful, vague anxiety, and it wouldn't go away. I went and told Jessie about it. Diane was in her office at the time

"As I've told you before," Jessie said, "don't get your hopes up. They will likely find him innocent by way of insanity."

"They can't," I said, with tears in my eyes like I was some kid. It seemed so unfair to Mom.

I looked for encouragement from Diane, who shrugged in a noncommittal manner.

"Jessie's not often wrong about these sorts of things," she said.

"If Mom's murder goes unpunished," I swore, "I'll lose all my faith in America. I'm so anxious, and I can't help it. I hope you're not right about this one, Grandma."

Jessie gave me a furious look. "How odd to call me that after all this time. Listen to yourself, my dear kettle of fish. In this country, they've excused bizarre sexual killings by reason of insanity for decades. What I think they should do is take capital punishment out of the hands of the jury. Which juror wants to be responsible for anyone's execution?

"We should have a system of National Court Tribunals made up of experienced criminal judges, maybe groups of six or nine–judges who, in theory, agree with capital punishment. That way, if a defendant were found guilty of capital murder, the jury wouldn't have to decide his ultimate fate. First degree murder convictions would automatically be sent to the tribunals to be sentenced. If they unanimously agreed that the verdict remained incontestable–in a case like this one with Decoté–then that would be it: within a month, the murderer would be gone from this earth. There could be a default clause, or something. If the tribunal of judges that reviewed the case didn't get a unanimous decision, the convicts would be sentenced to life without parole. But this insanity plea, if it's ever true, has got to go. It is a cruel joke against the victims, and it makes a mockery of the whole process."

"You're so right," I said.

"I don't know whether we will see any justice for Cathy," Jessie said softly, and hugged me. "Prepare yourself for the worst. I had Brad Paul watching the jury during the defense summation. He said that many of them often nodded in agreement with Kurt Knass. Chin up, lass, you're too young to sound like me."

"How unusually kind of you to say so," Diane said.

I returned to my desk, and Dad phone with the verdict five minutes later. I went and blubbered it incoherently to Jessie.

"Damn it," she whispered in my ear, hugging me again. "Despite everything, I wanted to be wrong."

"Innocent by way of insanity," I sobbed. "Dad says Ricicot smiled after they read the verdict and thanked the jurors. I hoped so much for justice. I can't believe it. Dad says it's for the best, but I think it's for the best for Ricicot Decoté."

After that, the weeks went by in a blur of work and tears. That half of the summer, I read John Le Carré's Smiley's People, The Perfect Spy, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, and Little Drummer Girl. I worked in Duluth, and John visited every weekend. Jessie insisted that he stay over, and he often did. We set a marriage date for the spring of 1989. I told John that I didn't want children right away, and that if I did have them, he would have to stay home to raise them. In principle, he agreed to this. I was certain that we could work out the details later.

Ingrid's marks in university were exceptional, and she decided to apply to medical school. She studied for her entrance exams all summer.

I saw Kelsey Kratten one last time in Duluth before he disappeared from our radar for thirty months. It was in September as I left the Basle Building for lunch. I ran back and fetched Hussein, but Kelsey had disappeared by the time we returned.

In October, I read four of Jessie's favorite nonfiction books, Adventures in Ideas by Alfred Whitehead, Why I'm Not a Christian by Sir Bertrand Russell, The Myth of Mental Illness by Thomas S. Szasz, and The Existence of God by Wallace I. Matson. I began to adopt a strong skeptical position on many issues.

Over December and January, 1988, I read Candide by Voltaire, The Dark Science by J. Masson, and The Order of Things by Michel Foucault. In February, I returned to science fiction with The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis and Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard.

In mid-March, Jessie abruptly reassigned me. I had to take a three-month course on modern bio-apparatus and immune-analysis machinery at Concordia University in St. Paul. I moved in with John.

The course was intense and took all my focus. I wasn't able to look at another book outside of the course readings. At the end of June, I finished with excellent marks, and asked Jessie for a holiday. To my utter surprise, she turned me down. I was to immediately join Nazer Brown's team in New York City for two months.

Jessie had once told me that Nazer Brown was the unofficial executive vice-president of B&R. He was a tall man, six feet and three inches tall with curly, fine, sandy brown hair and a pleasant manner. He was slim and in good shape for a man in his middle fifties. He had brown eyes and sharp facial features. Ruth, his wife and fellow employee, was slightly younger than him. Petite and in excellent shape, she had angular features and blonde hair. They personified Jessie's ideal of a business couple: she called them solid trademarks, and I know that she admired and trusted them. I lived with them in their luxurious New York City condo. They were wonderful hosts, but they were exceedingly busy as well, and those were a hard, lonely two months.

I got a lot of reading in, though, including The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer, and the five book series A History of Western Philosophy by W. T. Jones.

I should have suspected something when I returned to Duluth in August. No one knew the books of B&R better than me, except for Diane and Jessie. However, when it came to those two, I was a dunderhead, and believed everything I heard from them.

If I had applied my normal skepticism to Jessie's statements on August 14 as I did to everything else, I wouldn't have made such a big fool of myself for so long, nor would I have caused myself so much grief.

It happened on a Monday. Jessie called a meeting first thing in the morning. Attendance was compulsory for every board member, manager, and executive. There were eighteen of us including Diane, Ruth, Nazer, Jack Mountbar, Joe Murphy, Brad Paul, Grandpa, and me.

When everyone was seated, Emily came in and distributed folders to everyone.

When I began to read its contents, my heart fell, and I sensed in the room that I wasn't alone in my response.

Jessie came in fifteen minutes later, and wouldn't look at me. I was stunned, but also angry that I had been left out of the loop. Diane put up a large colored graph on an industrial easel beside the wall. It showed how profits and dividends had plummeted in the last two quarters. The blood drained from everyone's faces as announcements hit home.

"I've bought us a month by mortgaging everything I own," Jessie said softly.

I stared at the yellow water stains on the ceiling. I had always hated this room, but had never noticed the stains before. It was one of those old conference rooms with tacky paintings and black leather chairs.

How Jessie had ever approved it, I had no idea, but I was glad she had. It was perfect for today. Jessie finally looked at me, full of pity. My inheritance was in jeopardy.

"My stand on UD-Tec-300 and U-Refuse-400 has led to an economic disaster," Jessie admitted. "As it stands, with the boycott and the growing publicity, in a decade B&R will be pared down to a national distributor for pharmaceuticals. If we act now, we can be spared this fate.

"The measures in the restructuring package will be monitored, at the Ruckert family's insistence, by Johnston, Packard and Finley. B&R has to come up with six million dollars within a two-month period. We will be selling assets, and if necessary, whole plants. As you see, there will be lay-offs and buyouts of employees. As well as reducing labor costs, we'll lower operating costs in other ways. Most importantly, B&R must show a massive profit next quarter to attract genuine, sympathetic investors."

I looked at Grandpa, who nodded to me that he had approved the package, but Jack Mountbar's reaction was another matter. I could tell that he was furious. Jessie had always wanted to get rid of him, but Grandpa and Grandma had stood in the way.

"This is a joke, right?" he asked, his plump red cheeks quivering in anger. "All these years we've worked together, and you're going to let this enterprise go to the sharks because you're too proud to unload our abortifacient products–which anyone who buys us or invests in us will do a day after an agreement is made? We are going to lay off our people, or if they stay, make their lives unbearable, and we're to do it all with a twenty percent cut in our salary?"

Jessie met his gaze. "The lay-offs, we hope," she said calmly, "will be temporary, and the same for the executive pay cut. If we show a more-than-respectable quarter and a realistic plan for downsizing, I think we'll find long-term financing. For months, we've been in trouble. Don't you read your mail?"

"Our stock and market difficulty is due to the boycott of The United Council of Christian Churches," Jack said, still flush.

"Would you let her finish?" Diane said. "Hear her out, then say your piece. She still runs this company, and has made you a mighty fine living for thirty-three years."

The room fell into silence. "I'm quite aware that I have to negotiate with the churches," Jessie said. "For the sake of the survival of B&R, I'm ready to concede over this issue. We're world class in vaginal medicines, portable dialysis, blood-analyzing machines, home pregnancy tests, birth control, and morning-after pills. We're growing worldwide, and we're in a hungry time–that is all. We are one of the best buys in America, and we'll find an investor to cover for us short-term."

I didn't understand this at all. I was perplexed, but realized she must be using ten year projections or some such thing. I caught Diane's look of admiration for Jessie and was even further perplexed.

Jessie left the meeting with Diane without answering any questions, and they drove Ruth and Nazer to the airport without another word to me. I didn't see at the time that Nazer and Ruth didn't seem the least bit upset, either. I was aware of the rules of a private company using public investment–or the fact that there weren't many of them–but I still couldn't see the obvious.

That evening, I drove to St. Paul and stayed with John. I didn't show my face in Duluth for two weeks, using the vacation time that I was owed, and which I demanded.

At the time, John was hired by The St. Louis County High School Board in Vesey, and was very excited. I was a drag on his good humor, but he was patient with me.

I remember reading The Pawnbroker by Edward Lewis Wallant and Love's Lovely Counterfeit by James M. Cain at the time.

"Why is it that when you're depressed," I asked, "books from the depths of human misery find their way into your hands?"

"It's the way of life," John answered. "When you're down, you see life's worst side."

"How can I ever forgive Jessie and Diane?"

"It must be hard for them. Maybe they're ashamed of their failure or something."

But when I returned to Duluth, they didn't appear ashamed at all.

Many employees at B&R looked to me for clarification and support through the current crisis, but I didn't understand it myself. Depressed by Jessie's behavior and B&R's bad economic turn, I remained withdrawn. I realized that my understanding of Jessie's wealth had always been a vast overestimate. Mom had told me more than once that Jessie was one of the richest people in the northwest; apparently, this had been an exaggeration.

When I tried to examine the books, I was sent to Chicago for a national conference on pharmaceuticals and the national distribution of drugs, which was held at their Convention Center.

This, too, should have tipped me off, but didn't.

I had Chinese Shadows by Simon Leys with me. Still, even reading about the shadow play, I couldn't see the one under my nose. However, I was side-railed as well. With all that was going on, I completely forgot about Kelsey Kratten.

I stayed in a downtown Holiday Inn on the fourth floor. The hotel shared ground floor space with a restaurant, Big Boy, and every evening, I had supper there–salads, mostly.

On Wednesday after supper, when I returned to my room, Kelsey Kratten lay in wait for me. He had somehow let himself in, and when I arrived, he was waiting behind the door.

"You mustn't make a sound," he ordered, putting a finger to my lips, but otherwise not touching me. "If you follow my instructions, you won't get hurt."

He was holding a gun to me. I quaked, afraid that I would faint in fear.

"Your grandmother works with a secret organization," he said. "Sit down over there in the sofa chair." He sat across from me on the end of the bed, still aiming the gun. "Do you know that?"

I shook my head.

"It's The Zionist Order of the New Earth...ZONE...the Satanic Zone. Your grandmother has a huge collection of their books." I opened my mouth in shock. Was it possible he'd been in the condo?

"She has a hand-signed collector's edition of Joseph Campbell in her library," he continued. "In an interview for one of the New York Jew magazines, she stated, 'Mr. Campbell defines myth as the method of bringing us into accord with the rhythm of the universe, and religions as significant metaphors for the inexplicability and harshness of life.' See how they support each other? Campbell was one of the atheistic liberal elite in league with the Jews, and so is your grandmother. He was a PBS flunky, and PBS is run by ZONE. Like many businesses in America, Basle and Ruckerts take their cue from ZONE. The Renoir, Homer, and Hopper prints on the wall of your grandmother's condo–all those impressionist-painters were in league with that Jewish Satanist, Blavatsky. All the wealthiest members of ZONE are told to collect Paul Gauguin. They celebrate pagan nudity. Your grandmother has three of them. She's one of his lieutenants."

He was ranting mad, but I dared not say a word. I could see that he was desperate. He looked hungry too, or maybe predatory.

"Comparing pagan idolatry to Christianity is as insulting as can be," he continued. "It is so indecent, and rude! Polite behavior comes from goodness inside. With the love of Christ in your heart, you can smile even under the worst conditions. Apathy caused by the callousness of the present pagan society leaves us all depressed. It's a result of skepticism, the worst evil of the modern era–the Jewish blight.

"Without faith, the path to the Lord stands closed to many people. Grace and charity are lost. Caring for a stranger and the motivation to be good disappear–and, yes, even good manners. Your grandmother shares much responsibility for the detriment of morals in America. Have you ever wondered why she's so rude? Look at your situation. She lets you travel through Europe unchaperoned, and pays for it! She lets you sleep with your boyfriend under her roof. She has no moral standards.

"ZONE controls the Catholic Church. John Williams calls himself a Christian, but he is no more than a substitute Jew. I love you, can't you see that? I'm trying to save you from them."

He stopped for a moment, and then he sang in a high-lilted voice as cold shivers ran down my back:

"A little child is in a red-hot oven,

"Hear how it screams to come out.

See how it turns and twists about.

It beats its head against the roof of the oven.

It stamps its little feet all the while

You can hear its screams swell.

You can see in the face of this child,

What you see on the faces of all of the wicked in hell."

He sang this horrible song for a few minutes, repeating it in his freaky, child-like voice. I thought he was going to kill me. His eyes had screwed up, and spittle came from his mouth. I was crying and sweating too. Then he rose, kissed me on the forehead, and left.

I locked the door behind him and phoned Jessie, babbling, screaming, and hardly able to make sense.

In a moment, while we were still on the phone, there was a knock at the door. It was Detective Kaze. He wore a baseball cap and had on dark casual clothes. His eyes were alight–I'd say almost with humor–and he had once again trimmed his beard.

"I followed Kelsey to Chicago," he said after I had hung up with Jessie. "I was having dinner just down the street at Wendy's when Diane phoned. You hadn't notified my office you were coming here, or I'd have realized why he was here."

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

"Don't be sorry, just be more careful. Can I have a seat?" I nodded, and he asked me to repeat as accurately as I could what Kelsey had said. "He's been inside the condo," I said when I finished. "He named some books and paintings on the wall."

"He thinks he's dying," Kaze said. "His room in downtown Cleveland is filled with antiviral or antibacterial prescription pills like amoxicillin or metronidazole. He stays above a massage parlor on a busy downtown corner, with cars screeching, fire-trucks wailing, and cockroaches scurrying even in the daylight. His apartment has no kitchen, just a half-sized refrigerator and an electric plate. He has other things like a kettle, frying pan, cutlery, plates, and so forth. All new. Do you see how odd that is? He's pretending to be poor–worse still, he's pretending to be sick. Having no cupboard space, the appliances sit out on a large table, which is also new.

"He has universal weight machines and scales, likewise brand new. His fifty-pound barbell carries forty pound weights on either side; he's in shape, too. For cash, he washes dishes after lunch and supper rush-hours across the street at The Sunset Strip Grill, but the owner says he only works sporadically and never asks for his pay. He always has money. Do you see? He seems even more creepy than before."

"Who's his cash from?"

"I don't know for sure, but it has to be from The Star Christian Association for Revelation of the Ecclesiastics, Bowers, or that wealthy supporter of theirs. Like at Bowers' place, there is only one crucifix hanging on Kelsey's wall–you wouldn't know that it housed a fanatic by appearance alone. There are four framed photographs on the walls: one of Reverend Bowers, one of Reverend Billy Graham, one of his family, and the unbelievable part–one of you and Jessie in front of The Grenada Complex at Superior and Weldment.

"In Cleveland, Kelsey roams the streets and stops at shops, bars, restaurants, and coffee shops. On the wooden fences in front of the town homes and semidetached houses, he spray-paints in red expressions like 'Die Faggot,' 'Satan is Here,' 'Cloven Will Strike,' or 'I'm out of Control for Christ!' He goes to fast food places all the time, but eats nothing; he only reads the paper and drinks diet pop, speaking to himself all the while. In his room there's one plant, a large potted Dieffenbachia tree with no leaves. It's dead."

When I returned to Duluth, we had another meeting with Detective Kaze, but I'd heard and seen everything I needed. Jessie bought an entirely new security system, but nothing could have made me feel safe then. She sent me to Vesey to supervise the plant closing. I should have been insulted, but I knew that she wanted me close to home.

Furthermore, this added to the seeming chaos of the time. It was obvious that Jessie was angry with me, but for the life of me, I couldn't tell why and didn't understand it until the last Tuesday in September.

It was an afternoon with a clear sky and a cool breeze. John had invited me to meet him outside Vesey at Bell Weather Gardens, a property for weddings and formal functions.

The park had a huge canopy of autumn colors, flower gardens, clusters of groomed pines and shrubs, and a backdrop of wooded areas with huge boulders in small clearings, all for photography sessions.

We met at four o'clock. I could see that the park was absolutely lovely. He walked with me through an unbroken cluster of leafless birch trees, many with wonderful symmetry. The smell of dampness, of autumn, of change, floated to me.

"I placed new flowers at your mom's grave this morning," John said. "I was at the cemetery to visit my mom's gravesite."

"It's nice here," I said. "So many spots for the ceremony and the pictures. How is it inside?"

"Believe me, they have it all: the chapels, the reception and dining areas. They're all wonderful–expensive but wonderful."

We took a stone footpath on a slight decline through a pretty, sun-streaked woodland that fell out to a series of water fountains with ten-foot sculpted cedars and bouquets of fall flowers, some which had already lost their blooms.

"In the spring it will be terrific," he continued. "What's wrong, my love?"

"Nothing, just work. I'm excited to see you. This place is fantastic... But I forgot to tell you. Rumor is spreading like wildfire at B&R. We are days away from declaring bankruptcy. Everyone says that the company can't meet its payroll this week. All the former board members have sold their shares and resigned. There's nearly open panic. Morale has hit rock bottom. Jack Mountbar has been bought out at fifty percent of his last offer. He's fuming. Grandpa and Grandma are negotiating with Jessie for some equitable package for the workers at the plant, which will be closed in two weeks."

"How's Jessie holding up?" he asked. I shrugged. "Who's going to be on the new Board of Directors?" he asked further. "It looks like some big names are being floated around. Even the mayor of Duluth's name has come up in the papers."

These questions, their tonal quality, and John's smirk made me come up short.

"I'm concerned about Jessie," I said.

"She seems quite unaffected by the whole controversy."

I couldn't recall ever being so mystified by Jessie, Diane, or now, John. They all seemed to have gone crazy.

"Why do you say that?" I asked.

He raised his eyebrows, as though to make fun of me. "Don't you feel the mist from the fountains? Look at the big one over there. It must be shooting up twenty feet. I had them turn it on just for us."

He took my hand and pulled me in the direction of it.

I began to laugh. "I'm getting soaked."

"Down this way then." He pointed east.

While we ran, the sound of the huge fountain lessened. I managed to get my face wet without getting wholly soaked. We kissed under a giant oak.

"Last Friday I spoke to Jessie at length," he whispered, holding me in his arms and sauntering along. "Remember, I told you. She was hardly sarcastic at all, and was quite unusually charming–not sad, pale, anxious, or otherwise distressed. She didn't look particularly concerned about any upcoming crisis at B&R. Yet, one statement keeps coming back to me. She said that sometimes you were slow on the uptake. That startled me. I couldn't have imagined her ever saying a critical word about you, and as far as I can see from what you've said, she hasn't left anyone else out. Do you see what I mean?"

I was puzzled.

"To me, she seemed happy about something," he continued. "I can't imagine what it is, but she doesn't strike me as a woman about to lose her life's work or to lose the most important thing to her besides you." He leaned over and kissed me on the face. "Are you sure you're reading everything correctly, my kettle of fish?" he said, imitating Jessie's voice. "You've turned awfully serious. Something I said?"

"Why didn't you mention this earlier?"

"Don't be angry. It's always hard with a Basle. What's an acceptable level of interference?"

This was true, and I'd already snapped at him a couple of times when he had given me unsolicited opinions. We walked together in silence, and thinking it over in the breezy quiet of the beautiful park, I grew convinced that my pessimism following the death of Mom had blinded me.

Jessie was happy about B&R. How right John was. I'd thought I was about to lose B&R, the business I had grown to love. But it was really my life with Jessie that I'd grown to love.

"She has made the downsizing of B&R look perfectly real," I said, flabbergasted. "I've been such a fool. I've got to go back to Duluth and check it out. You're right. Jessie is as happy as I've ever seen her. You can miss that sort of thing with her. Her happiness is like other people's anger."

"What are you thinking?"

"Jessie's not going to negotiate with the churches, the Ruckert's, or even Jack Mountbar. She's going to publicly surrender and announce defeat. She already has. She'll prove to them that we're out of the abortifacient business–then, she'll transfer the research to a ghost company, a corporation offshore, maybe. Maybe she already has. But John, why wouldn't she tell me?"

"Seems to me it was a test and you failed it–but maybe it isn't too late?"

We drew into a massive flower garden, just before the entrance. "It really is beautiful here, John."

"It would be a great place for a wedding, if you're still interested."

"I've blindly trusted Jessie, and she has fed me pabulum, but that's just ended. Now, I'll be on my guard." I hugged him. "How can I ever thank you?"

"I don't know, but there's nobody around right now."

"Have you ever done it on the hood of a Mercedes?" I asked.

He laughed and I took him to the car. I stripped naked and lay back on the hood. It was cold, but not that uncomfortable, and John was very excited and only lasted a few minutes anyway.

An hour later, I was on my way back to Duluth. Jessie was staying home with Diane that night, so I didn't phone ahead, as perhaps I should have. I walked in on them making love; they'd left the bedroom door open. Jessie was furious.

"What are you doing home?"

"You're fooling everyone so you can buy out Grandma and Grandpa. Why didn't you tell me?"

"It's not about buying anyone out–we're just using the opportunity to do it. The fabricated defeat was created to move research abortifacients to Europe, where most of the automated blood analyzer research is done. An abortion pill is still doable, but it'll take two decades instead of one. We had to sever all its ties with B&R."

"She won't be able to openly taunt her enemies anymore," Diane said, coming up behind her in a housecoat that belonged to Jessie and rubbing her shoulders.

"Publicly, I've had to give them the upper hand," Jessie continued, "and it's humiliating, but it's worth the price. Winning in the long run negates any short-term sacrifice. I hatched my stratagem with Diane and Nazer. They knew the details as it unfolded. Diane suggested much of it. Nazer second-guessed and complained through most of it. That was as it should be.

"If you, my kettle of fish, didn't have enough on the ball to look farther than appearances, do you really deserve to run this company? I thought you should figure it out for yourself, and I'm glad you did. In a month or so, everything will be different. About buying out the Ruckerts and Mountbar, that's always been my long-term design and you knew it. This plan made it possible–faster, cheaper, and while generating more sympathy."

I could see that she was becoming almost giddy that I had finally figured it out. That I'd walked unannounced in on them making out was never even brought up. Her secret strategy at B&R must have been a terrible secret for her to keep from me. I didn't tell her that it was John who had figured it out and not me. I was afraid it might give her doubts about my ability to someday run the company.

Chapter Eleven

As it unfolded, there was trouble with the whole plan. Jessie was the first to admit that morale was the culprit. Some of our most ardent supporters and hardest workers had left in the last six months as word spread of our demise–not that the salespeople suffered. Jessie had never intended to touch their incentive programs anyway, and none of them quit once they had seen their first bonus after restructuring. Working in such an atmosphere was hardly a breeze for the salespeople either, but they were mostly on their own in some sense anyway. Some large sales had to be okayed by Brad Paul, Diane, or me, and we often had to check with Jessie. Jessie wouldn't touch a large sale, no matter how big, unless the numbers were crystal clear. She went straight by the book and often demanded guarantees on the payment, especially for hardware, so there were plenty of late nights.

By May of 1989, I had personally hunted down and rehired two women who'd left in September of 1988 during Jessie's feign. They returned with full wages and then some, plus I reinstated their seniority, benefits, and so forth. Jessie wasn't happy about it; she thought that they'd showed a lack of loyalty by quitting. But we were working around the clock without them, and had lost at least one major sale for lack of people to process it.

It was the sales themselves that gave us the real headaches. Demand slightly exceeded expectation. It was the problem of which every businessperson dreams, but lots of trouble nonetheless. Our deliveries grew later and later.

In the spring, John and I bought a house in Vesey. It was a large property that we liked on Perot Street, but it needed a lot of work. John promised to have it ready before our wedding in July.

In mid-June, on a cold and rainy evening in New York City, I found myself with Jessie and Diane at La Guardia Airport. Lawyers and executives from B&R's New York City office–we called them Nazer's women–came out with him to see us. I thought it was weird. Nazer Brown stuck out among them, but his looks had faded and so had his fine sandy brown hair.

Jessie took his arm and pulled him away from his young, slim, and pretty female executives after nodding to them. Diane and I shook their hands. We had met them here and there over the years; all four were married career women. They were all made up in fashionable business clothes like Diane and me. I thought Jessie would have rather met Nazer alone tonight, but this was a slated event, put on the calendar a year ago.

He'd probably insisted on it, and it was no surprise to me why.

It was a complaint of the executives at B&R, especially in New York City, that they never got to meet Jessie. With keen interest, they admired and followed her career, the growth of the company under her direction, their futures within it, her reputation inside the women's movement, and generally, her overall style–what Jessie referred to as her trademark.

Since we were coming to New York City to have an informal-formal get-together with all the employees, why not let the executives pick us up at the airport? I thought that was Nazer's reasoning. He was funny about those things. When I lived with Ruth and Nazer, the only complaint I ever heard him verbalize about Jessie was that she was often inaccessible to her people, and too sharp with them when she did see them.

We were also there to visit the Future of Medicine Exhibition the next night in Manhattan. Some glumness still pervaded B&R, but Jessie's immediate goal of fooling her adversaries was nearing its end. I knew why Jessie had done it in the first place; her goals were still the same, but it was a bit scary how she was reaching them. After all, there was some deceit involved.

Jessie held up a brown manila envelope and handed it to Nazer, who opened it at once. Inside was a manuscript.

"I've finished," she said.

"The Restructuring of Modern Medicine by Jessie Basle," he said. "For goodness sake, I've lived to see the day. Congratulations."

He pointed to indicate a turn as we walked, and I realized that his tall, elegant figure hadn't lost its power. He put the manuscript back into the envelope and we hurried out into the drizzle, sliding into the waiting limousines. I didn't see the press, and more happily, I didn't see Kelsey Kratten.

Diane was dressed in a business suit and carried a black briefcase. She hadn't gotten as wet as Jessie.

"Nice to see you again, Diane," Nazer said. "So, Nat, are you ready for our party tonight?" I nodded. "Wait until you see this place. It's at the Trade Center, the Marriott, and it includes supper, a live band, dancing, the works! It's funny, everybody is celebrating, but nobody except us knows why." We laughed. "I think everything will be fine now," Nazer continued, "but Jessie–I suppose Diane has hinted at the same thing–they won't be fooled again. In that regard, you have to lose the rhetoric. They can destroy us. You mustn't taunt them anymore."

"You sounded so British, just now," Jessie said.

"Am I to take it from your e-mail today that you're offering Ruth and I a stay at Gurucet?"

"Only if you want it," Jessie said. "There's the beautiful fifteenth-century mansion there, of course. You would be the executive vice president for Delilah Europe. We could talk about your remuneration a bit later, but I'd make it worth your while. It all checks out with our Euro-investors."

"Nat didn't want it?" Nazer said, looking at me.

"If you don't understand," Jessie said, squeezing my arm, "perhaps I never explained it to you adequately. Nat is my replacement, not yours. I can assure you that a position like Gurucet might well ruin her life presently, especially if you, I, and Diane aren't there to help. By the time that she's ready to become a flesh-eating capitalist like myself, I suppose that I will be gone, and Di will be working on her second set of dentures."

"Wait until I get to the first set," Diane returned.

"Everything is falling into place," Jessie said. "I couldn't be happier. I'll even meet with each one of your executives tonight. How many?"

"You know exactly how many," Nazer said. "They are all wonderful, completely committed to your ideas of furthering woman's health and freedom to decide these issues for themselves."

Nazer had been right: the party was amazing. After a few glasses of wine, I phoned John from the hall to tell him I missed him, but I woke him with my call and felt bad.

On July 15, John and I were married by the Catholic priest who had baptized John and given him the other sacraments like First Communion and Confirmation. The ceremony, pictures, dinner, and reception were held at the Bell Weather Gardens.

I wore a simple white dress with a thin veil and no train. I had white shoes with almost no heels, and my bouquet of daisies was simple and small. Jessie and Diane had helped me pick everything out. It was not exactly traditional, but modern in a modest way, just as Jessie liked.

John had wanted a mass, and to have the actual vows exchanged in the beautiful Church of the Nativity in Elmer, but I pleaded with him and won out. It would have set Jessie off, and if Mom were alive, she wouldn't have liked it either. Besides, as a wedding gift, Jessie and Di were paying for our two-week honeymoon in Hawaii. I didn't want to go on it feeling guilty.

The priest was polite and understanding. All I had to promise was to allow John to raise our children Catholic, which meant to sending them to Catholic School and to mass on Sundays.

"Look at it this way," Jessie had said when I'd asked what she thought. Her answer astounded me. "They can instill in them all the propaganda they want about Jesus and his bag of tricks–but in the end, your voice of reason, asking for proof of God's existence, for recent verifiable miracles, or even, God forbid, a unified Christian standard of values, will defeat all the silly Bible stories in the world. Science may not have all the answers, but by comparison, it offers solid facts. Everybody's taught about Santa Claus. It doesn't seem to do a lot of harm. Look at the books I gave to you when you were a teenager. Did your dad's views on faith and miracles ever come close to converting you?"

"What about Ingrid?" I asked.

"You can't have everything. I didn't have the time with her that your dad did, and Cathy didn't care enough about this issue to challenge him. She loved him too much. There is such a thing for a woman: you can love a man too much, and not do the right thing. Doing the right thing is more important than a happy family."

John and I stayed on Hilo Bay in Hawaii, and had a wonderfully romantic time. Through the whole holiday, I read book after book of Agatha Christie–over twenty of them from a collection that Ingrid and Arthur had given us for a wedding present.

John was reading a combination of suspense-murder mystery books from William Bernhardt and Tom Clancy. He said there was too much Agatha Christie at school, especially in theater club, and he would probably never read her for leisure. I thought she was great.

I had been falsely hoping that our house in Vesey would be complete when we returned, but it wasn't.

On an August long weekend, over Sunday's meal at the Ruckert mansion, Grandpa asked me how B&R was managing. I was tongue-tied and mumbled that it looked like it would survive. I could see that they saw straight through me. It was embarrassing.

At the end of September, the house was finished and we moved in. John had been living in the old Ruckert mansion, and I, in Duluth. It was nice for John. Dad had a girlfriend from Hibbing now, Jill, who was only two years older than me. He was out with her quite a bit, so John had the house to himself.

Jill worked at Dixie-Lee, and John said that she was called a hot blonde by all the boys at school.

I asked him what the boys had called me back in the days when he was a high school student. He thought about my question for a moment. "I don't remember them calling you anything," he said. "They probably wished they could have a roll in the hay with you, but they probably also realized that the price was too high. Boy, were they right about that."

He caught my eyes and winked, then made a dash for it, but I saw his taunt and jumped him. We tumbled onto the bed.

At the time, I felt that Jill and Dad were in love. I began calling her Mom as a joke, but also as a show of affection, but Dad asked me to stop it. He and John were becoming close friends, which was yet another reason to be happy. They often talked about John's lack of relationship with his father. Like Paul and I, Dad thought it was time for John to talk to his dad, but John just couldn't forgive Stacy. It was John and Dad's only contentious matter.

In October at our renovated house in Vesey, John and I held a huge town-wide Halloween party. It had an open bar and was catered with hot food by an old friend of John's. John and I were both tipsy by the end of the long night, but we had a wonderful time.

Two days later came the saddest day of my life.

On Monday, November 13, Jessie and I were on our way from Minneapolis-St. Paul to Duluth by limousine. Jessie had just finished reading a short book, Thoughts on Man by Konosuke Matsushita, one of the giant industrialists in the international business world since the Second World War. Ironically, I was reading Jessie's just-published The Restructuring of Modern Medicine. Diane had stayed in Duluth, and Emily was driving.

We arrived a little late at the Basle Building; Jessie had phoned ahead to let Diane know.

"I never knew that you met John Henry," I said softly, after reading about it in her book.

"I met him at a medical supplies conference in New York City. He had just bought Pharmatec a year before, and let go of nearly the whole executive staff. Most of them had been fired for graft, mind you, or so the rumor went. I asked how he found the company's performance after the scandal. This is what he told me–I'll never forget it:

"'People from the ranks came up to take the positions of those who were fired,' he said, 'salespeople, technicians, and so forth; they nearly jumped into the breach. Outside of a first bad quarter, Pharmatec turned it around at once. Even just a year later, I could have sold it for twice the price I bought it at. Everywhere there are good-quality people willing to learn and take on responsibility. They may not all have a college education, but they're still intelligent and well motivated.'"

"He sounds like a nice man," I said.

"Upper management is rife with corruption in North America and Europe," Jessie said, "and as I stated in the book, the growth of bureaucratic executive branches in large American businesses has led to a competitive disadvantage in many segments. In some companies, they account for over fifteen percent of the total expenses–whereas at B&R, it's under four percent. Paying middle-aged executives in stock options is suicidal for any company. A mindset takes over to drive up public stock by any means possible. I think it should be outlawed."

"I agree with what you say in your book that, if possible, the government should stay out of business," I said, "but I'm not sure about your view that churches should be taxed. The Christians have every right to protest or boycott our products over abortion; that is their democratic right. They feel we are wrong–and how could it be otherwise–but they aren't businesses."

"They are businesses, my kettle of fish," she returned, "and not too different than our business, but to a point. I will always continue to finance artificial abortifacient research, always. This isn't negotiable. Even though you think all I've done is trick them–and it's true–I would sacrifice everything to produce an abortion pill. No further research will be done on this in North America, I promise you that. It's in Nazer's hands now."

"I'll keep our secret," I said. "I'm proud to be in your confidence. I admire you more than you know–but I'll tell you one thing that worries me: John may not agree to be a stay-at-home dad after all."

Jessie laughed. "Nobody's marriage is perfect; it's impossible. Keep your finger's crossed and be patient." The Basle Building came into view.

"The press is here," she said. "I've become a celebrity in Duluth. What were the chances? They think that I'm a loser over the settlement with the churches, and smell blood."

"If they only knew."

"Emily, pull up out in front," she said. "I'll say a few words about the end of the boycott." The Mercedes edged up in front of the Basle Building. "Good," she added, "there's Di." She turned to me. "Let's go."

As we stepped out of the limousine, a female reporter with short blonde hair came up to the curb, with a heavyset, muscular blond cameraman immediately behind her. Both major local television stations were there.

"Ms. Basle, your Minneapolis-St. Paul trip officially ended the boycott against B&R. How are you feeling?"

"We are thrilled."

"Don't you feel you've betrayed your supporters?"

"Absolutely not. The United Council of Christian Churches became committed to making an arrangement with us, and we're satisfied that we can continue to service the medical needs of the women of America. It had never been our goal to defy community standards, nor define what they should be, nor to show any disrespect for–"

A loud bang resounded close by from behind the cameraman and Jessie fell to the ground, bleeding from the chest. I screamed and crouched to her side, cradling her head in my hands

"Someone's got a gun," a man shouted.

"Someone's been shot!" another voice said.

Another shot rang out, and then about two seconds later, another still.

"Jessie Basle has been shot," someone shouted, "call an ambulance!"

The crowd seemed to eddy in a circle around us.

Diane crouched next to Jessie on her other side, and placed her palm over the hole in Jessie's chest to slow the bleeding. Yet another shot rang out. Jessie looked down at the wound, then to Diane, and lastly to me. A fifth shot occurred.

"He's shot a police officer!" someone shouted. I could see Jessie's blood on the sidewalk and I pulled her closer into my arms, crying.

"What's happened?" Jessie asked.

"Someone shot you," Diane said.

"Was it Kelsey Kratten?"

"I think so," I said. Although I didn't know for sure, who else could it be? "Hang on, Jessie," I whispered, still holding her, "please."

"You'll be okay," she whispered.

Diane too began to cry, but added, "I hear the ambulance coming."

Through the confusion on the sidewalk where she lay, I sensed her slipping away. Her hand felt cold, and she closed her eyes.

"Look after her," she whispered, taking Diane's hand. That was the last thing she said.

In the days that followed, I was amazed by Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, and Ingrid's behavior. Their support for, and consultation with, Diane and I were wonderful, always bent to what Jessie would have wanted and never to their own needs.

They asked if visitors could be allowed to say a prayer at Jessie's casket, and if a minister could be in attendance. Did Jessie want to be cremated or buried? What sort of public statement should they should make? They spent thousands of dollars on flowers, and Jessie had the best of everything for her funeral. Perhaps more than anything, it was their speeches at the service that won me over. Even after everything–all the tension, the disagreements, and the bitter business transactions–they truly admired her.

I remember looking at Jessie at the beginning of the first visitation, the Wednesday evening after her assassination. I walked into the stately room as though I were all alone. She lay some ten or fifteen feet away. I felt my stomach rumble even while my feet dragged me closer. It seemed impossibly hard. My eyes averted from the coffin, but Jessie's pale white image still came to me. She was a ghost of herself, her skin translucent and dead. I steadied myself by kneeling down on the prayer stand and cried. I dared not look directly at her body; I felt that I would have fainted.

I trembled all over. I tried to focus on Jessie's hands. They seemed slender enough, but they were dark now, yellowish as though she had been a chain smoker. I didn't quite know how to feel. What should I say to everyone? There were so many people. Should I tell Dad that without Jessie I was a frightened little girl, not even meant to look up at the sun?

For several moments, I stared at the floor and saw the shiny, polished wooden slats, the grain highlighted in streaks of light and dark hues. I then studied the ceiling and tried to focus on the color of white. I caught a glimpse of Jessie's ashen face out of the corner of my eye. Her tightened bloodless features were like a waxed image of her former self. I began to cry anew.

Jessie had defined the purpose of my life and made me a willing prisoner of her designs. I leaned over and touched the cold, porcelain-like skin.

"What will I do without you?" I whispered through my tears.

After that first visitation, I returned to the condo with John and Diane. I tried hard to get drunk on white wine, and went to bed both restless and tired.

The next night at the visitation was worse, and the morning after that, before the formal ceremony and speeches, I completely broke down.

Dad hugged me for the longest time. I cried and cried, and so did Ingrid. She was dressed in black, with her striking, long blonde hair tied tightly behind her and falling down her back. She seemed to tower over me now. I saw John and Arthur standing back near the curtains. A half hour remained before we started, and the chapel was full except for the reserved benches at the front.

"We'll be sad together for a long time," Ingrid whispered.

"Forever," I promised.

I met John's eyes as he came over. He gave me a kiss and a hug, then knelt at the coffin, and for some moments, prayed in silence.

"You look like you could use a breath of fresh air," he said to us after he rose. "Let's go outside."

"It's not too cold?"

"On the contrary."

The three of us passed through the center aisle and out the front entrance. How many hugs, handshakes, and teary-eyed kisses I received and gave, I had no idea.

Red maples lined the street between the pavement and the sidewalk. The grounds of the funeral home were manicured. Behind us, between perfect strips of dark green lawns, blue spruce pines stood thirty feet high.

A large crowd had been anticipated, but in fact thousands more than expected had come out. In pockets of smooth fall grass, mourners had gathered to smoke and discuss the mild weather.

Along the curb, I saw a line of parked cars, five or six across and forty or fifty deep, readying for the procession. The hearses and the black limousines had pulled out in the front driveway.

"There's Dad," Ingrid said. "He's been very busy–so many people."

"It's best to be busy," John said. "There's still some time before the ceremony procession, though. I understand that according to Jessie's wishes, the ceremony will be short. Heaven forbid if anyone mentions the word God."

"There's Diane and her family arriving now," I said. "We'd better go in."

John had some ice-cold bottled water for us, and we returned after we had some.

I put a new hard-covered edition of The Cider House Rules and a Château Ste-Croix-du-Mont Bordeaux Blanche, 1962, in the coffin. Dad put in a new copy of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in C by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and Ingrid put in Jessie's favorite piece of music, Edvard Hagerup Grieg's Peer Gynt by the Norwegian National Orchestra. Diane put in a photo of herself and Jessie, taken recently in front of the Basle Building.

They closed the casket and we took our seat. The closing of the casket was the worst it got for me. After that point, I slowly began to recover my spirits. I was sobbing desperately at the time.

"She was one of the most unique women America has ever produced," Dad said from the podium at the front, after the casket was closed and the curtain opened. "With the firebrand of a southern orator, she could make her point and would stick to her guns. Her whole adult life, she lived by her own demanding code of ethics, and held it up as a standard for all businesswomen in America, indeed all business people everywhere, and moreover, even for all Christians. She knew love and heartache, as we all do, yet her heart did not turn bitter at either personal betrayal, heartache, or the murder of her loving daughter. She kept her faith in life, and her church in humanity. I'm happy to say I was lucky enough to be her friend, and I hope she felt the same way."

Ingrid and Diane spoke next, then I recited "Autumn Song" by W. H. Auden as requested in her will.

The pallbearers placed the coffin on the cart and led the precession out the door to where the crowd had gathered. People came, mostly woman, from all over the country–thousands. It was the first time I realized that in her own right, Jessie was famous, not CNN famous, but culturally important.

The cars all lined up in order and pulled out behind the hearse and the family limos. I was later told that the procession of cars was nearly the length that it took to get to the graveyard. At Jessie's instruction, there were no speeches at the lowering; however, the Ruckerts had purchased thousands of roses, and each mourner could walk past the coffin and place a red rose on it. That alone took two hours, and when it was done, you couldn't see the top of the coffin.

Diane returned at once to Duluth, and on Monday morning, I was named acting president of B&R.

Without firing Kaze, which I would have liked to do–after all, Jessie was dead–I immediately hired a new security consultant, who by the end of the week had worked in conjunction with Kaze to develop an overhaul plan for the condo suite, the Basle Building, and the house in Vesey.

On Saturday, the Vesey Review broke a lead story on Jack Mountbar that would get national media attention. Diane rushed into my bedroom at the condo with it, waking me up at ten o'clock in the morning.

"Your father just sent this by courier from Vesey," she said, giving me a coffee and sitting on the edge of the bed. She began to read it aloud. "Dateline, Saturday, November 19, 1989 - (Reuters). Anti-abortion group linked to killing, by staff reporter Dave Zacroix. Talk of revolutionary action in notes found at Kelsey Kratten's home has led State officials to investigate a little-known connection yesterday between former Basle and Ruckert's Company executive Jack Mountbar, and The Star Christian Association for Revelation of the Ecclesiastics, Officials weren't ready to rule out a conspiracy. Association member Kratten is thought to have shot and killed Jessie Basle on Nov. 13; he then escaped. FBI spokesperson Susan Silvers said that the alleged link between Mountbar and the anti-abortion group will be fully investigated. 'Of course, the FBI is checking this information. At the moment, we are checking everything,' said Miss Silvers, adding that, even though Mountbar is a former senior B&R executive, he wasn't being treated as a suspect in the killing of Jessie Basle as of yet.

"'Reverend Bowers of The Star Christian Association for Revelation of the Ecclesiastics, who calls himself 'The Minister of the Unborn,' has for days denied that his group promotes violence against abortionists or that they encouraged Kratten to kill anyone for the cause of anti-abortion. Kratten had been with the association since 1985.

"'Jack Mountbar is a close friend of the Ruckert family," one source close to B&R said in an interview. According to Reverend Bowers, Mountbar–known to Bowers as Jack Niven–has helped finance The Star Christian Association for Revelation of the Ecclesiastics for some years."

"My God," I gasped in disbelief as Di continued.

"Rumors are also floating that Mountbar once dated Jessie Basle sometime after the death of her first and only husband, Dr. Edward Basle. Dr. Basle, the author of Babel, a best-selling novel bemoaning the hedonism of the sixties among the hippies, had been a longtime friend of Mountbar."

"Damn," I whispered. "It can't be."

"That bastard is behind this," Diane said, looking over. "I heard he had always sworn he would get Jessie–but let me go on." She began reading again. "'The Mayor of Duluth, Alex Hopkins, waded into the controversy yesterday by stating that if Mountbar orchestrated Kratten to act against Jessie Basle for personal reasons, then he should be considered the direct killer of Jessie Basle, and the state should seek the death penalty. Late last night, Mountbar, a former major shareholder and senior executive in B&R, contacted the Vesey Review over the phone from New York City, adamantly denying he had influenced Kratten to murder Jessie Basle, and threatening litigation unless we desisted in our allegations.

"'In a separate interview with Detective Denis Kaze, the head of Duluth Investigation Services, we were able to ascertain that Mountbar has not only been funding The Star Christian Association for Revelation of the Ecclesiastics, but may have given thousands of dollars to Kratten, and may have even supplied him with the murder weapon.'"

By then, I sat beside Diane, fully focused on the story.

"'Since 1985,' Detective Denis Kaze stated, 'I've been monitoring this group for B&R. I even infiltrated them. I believe that Reverend Bowers would never condone the murder of his enemies. At meetings, he always cautioned against demonizing those who were pro-choice or had sympathy for the pro-choice movement. Mountbar was another story. He was known to the group as Jack Nivens. He and that skin-head [Kratten] had developed an absurd theory that Jessie Basle was an agent for The Zionist Order of the New Earth, (ZONE), a satanical organization which allegedly controlled public broadcasting in America (PBS), the Catholic Church, the New York Times–which they called the Jew York Times–and many other institutions.

"Kratten and Mountbar demonized her constantly. I was hired by Jessie Basle after certain former members of The Star Christian Association for Revelation of the Ecclesiastics were traced to several attacks on her car, and one on her then-teenage granddaughter. Sometime in the earlier eighties, Kelsey Kratten began to stalk Jessie and Nat Basle. We didn't seek a restraining order at the time for fear that we would set him off; we thought, even way back then, that he had a screw loose and was dangerous. Not getting a restraining order, though, may have proven to be a mistake. He is a multi-talented sleuth, and I was nervous that I couldn't protect the Basle women if he decided to kill them. Several times, I phoned the FBI to notify them of my problem.

"'Truth is, Kratten monitored Jessie and Nat Basle mostly from afar, and hadn't committed any felony that we could prove. As you can see, he is a slippery fellow. I don't even think the fifty thousand dollars reward is going to see him captured. I've watched him for years–and he's well-funded, all the while giving the appearance to fellow Christians that he's a poor working stiff like the rest of us. Where did he learn all this? Jack Niven, I mean, Mountbar, is a former special forces man, elite unit. Where does Kratten receive his funds, if not from Bowers? Jack Mountbar is a millionaire many times over, and has a personal grudge against Jessie Basle.'"

I was dismayed. I could feel my anger growing. Diane flipped the page and continued. "Dave Zacroix [Over the phone last night to Reverend Gerry Bowers]: 'I have sent you a copy of tomorrow's story as it will appear in the Vesey Review. What do you think?'

"'RGB: 'I'm shocked. I'll open our [The Star Christian Association for Revelation of the Ecclesiastics'] books to any investigation. We'll release our meeting minutes, notes, writings, financial reports, and even bare our souls if need be. We are guilty of no wrongdoing. We never gave out money to Kelsey Kratten. Period. I often disagreed with Jessie Basle, but I also admired her grim fighting spirit. She was foremost a person who often said that this decisive issue of abortion had to be settled democratically. I agree with that, as I always have. If what you say of Jack Mountbar is true–remember, we thought his last name was Nivens–then he should be punished. If there is any way that we can assist your, or any, investigation, you have our one hundred percent co-operation.'

"'DZ: 'Were you never curious about a wealthy financial supporter through all these years?'

"'RGB: 'We're a small organization of dedicated servants of the Lord. Honesty is assumed from the first moment anybody joins. I didn't know how wealthy he was. He didn't talk about it. I assumed, as did we all, that he was a fellow Christian struggling for a better world."

"'DZ: "Were you surprised to find out he had special military training, and was quite possibly training Kelsey Kratten as an assassin?"

"'RGB: "We aren't a guerilla organization. We want a revolution, yes, but not a violent one. Kelsey Kratten said he heard voices, but I didn't take it literally. Jack Nivens, I mean, Jack Mountbar, whispered in his ears about a conspiracy theory, but there just isn't anything wrong with that. How do any of us know when someone is unstable or just daydreaming?'

"'DZ: 'What if you had found out that Jack Mountbar was living in Vesey? That he is a married man with an adopted daughter who Cathy Ruckert, Jessie Basle's daughter, helped him get when she practiced obstetrics? What would you say if you knew he was an executive and board member of B&R, and an indirect employee of Jessie Basle?'

"'RGB: 'I would have asked him to leave at once and never come back. He committed fraud against us.'"

As shocking as that story was, the harder part was that Kelsey Kratten was still out there, a fugitive from justice with training to be a secretive killer. I was scared.

On the first Monday in December, I fired Detective Denis Kaze. Perhaps he'd done everything humanly possible, but Jessie was dead, he'd gone public, and I was unnerved.

On December 22, indictments came down for Jack Mountbar. The next day, he committed suicide.

A day before New Years Eve, Diane came to the office with coffees, bagels, and the New York Times. She showed me the bold headline and then read the article: "Four Vesey Vengeance, by Dave Zacroix, Special to the Times, Vesey, Minnesota. Imagine an man–Jack Mountbar is his name–so intent on vengeance that he lived a complete and utter lie for years. His last days may have been played out in self-imposed exile inside a luxury hotel in downtown Manhattan, but in the end, he returned to his home in Vesey, where police found his body.

"'A man used to all the amenities died all alone, his bed littered with article after article from all the major newspapers about the incident that led him to his demise. A half-finished bottle of whiskey, a bucket of melting ice, and an empty glass were left with his suicide note, in which he apparently apologized to his good friends, the Ruckert Family, for his involvement in the death of Jessie Basle.

"'He was known in Vesey to like a drink, even several, while he ate. The restaurant owners knew him well. He always assumed that there remained no chance of his connection to Revered Gerry Bowers' organization, The Star Christian Association for Revelation of the Ecclesiastics, ever being discovered. Neither Bowers nor Basle knew of his subterfuge. His financial assistance to Bowers had always been in cash, but the group kept meticulous track of it. Over the years, it was in the tens of thousands.'"

"Let's ask them to return that money," I said angrily. Diane nodded, found her place again, and continued in a rush.

"'On the floor lay a Wesson 445 SuperMag. The bullet entered from the temple. Mountbar completely underestimated Bowers' response or the public outcry to Basle's assassination. Since Kelsey Kratten had killed Basle, Bowers has been completely co-operative with the FBI. This wasn't fatal to Mountbar's alias of Jack Nivens–his secret would have remained one, except for a few key questions that I asked of the right person.

"'Although Mountbar was a longtime friend of the Ruckert family, his position in B&R as a low profile executive protected him being recognized by the members of The Star Christian Association for Revelation of the Ecclesiastics. In turn, his association in Cleveland with them remained entirely unknown to the people of Vesey. However, I asked to see more information on the Cleveland group after I had talked to Detective Denis Kaze–he had verbally described Jack Nivens to me. It sure sounded like the Jack Mountbar I knew from Vesey, and sure enough, it was. Detective Kaze is no longer working for the Basle organization.'"

"How do they get this information so quickly?" I asked. Diane shrugged and continued reading aloud. "'Did Mountbar finance Kratten and set him up to murder Basle? Mountbar had become well known in Vesey social circles. People knew the story of his close friendship to Edward Basle, of Edward and Jessie's bitter divorce, of Jessie Basle and Mountbar's tumultuous affair and angry parting, and of Mountbar's recent claim that Basle had bought out the Ruckert part of the organization–of which he was a part–for an egregiously low price. For years, Mountbar had been angry about Basle on many fronts, and not shy about talking about it around Vesey. We also know that he received military and special forces training when he was a teenager. His only chance to get away with murder had been with anonymity, but weeks ago that had vanished. I imagine that the last sound he heard was the echo of the explosion of the gun as he fell to the floor. Police didn't let reporters see the suicide note, so we don't know whether he had genuine remorse for what he did to Basle or if he asked for the Basle family's forgiveness."

I sat back in my chair. "Why would he do it? How would he know to feed a mad man? How did he even find these jokers?"

"They had all been arrested in the past for anti-abortion demonstrations, sit-ins, and protests. They wear it like a badge of honor, like marks on their holsters. He must have known they were a band of crazies, and that maybe among them would be a dangerous one."

"I guess so." I rose and went to the window. "I miss her so much. First Mom, and now Jessie. I've got a ominous feeling."

"Good comes with the bad."

"I think I'll leave early today. I've thought about what you've said. Jessie wouldn't want you to move. Keep my room for me, and you can have the condo suite. I don't really want anything for it, but you'll have to cover all the monthly expenses now. I'll get the papers written up for it all next week."

Diane came over and hugged me.

In an hour or so, I left for Vesey. It started to snow, and I hit a snowstorm halfway there. It was seven o'clock before I was in John's arms. That was the saddest New Years Eve I ever experienced, and the next year was the hardest year of my life.

B&R nearly consumed me, and grief too.

The books I read, though good, did not seem to help me get out of my funk. For instance, Douglas Coupland's Generation X, which was brilliant, left me unsympathetic to my contemporaries. I had no desire to belong to their generation. Picture This by Joseph Heller was every bit as good as Catch Twenty-Two, clever in that same way as well, but it gave me what Jessie used to call the "Updike-Vonnegut Blues."

John was introducing Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger and A Separate Peace by John Knowles in his Outsider Literature course for twelfth graders. I read them both.

Whatever sentiment they expressed about the adolescent crises faced in growing up had nothing to do with my upbringing. I just found them sad, lonely stories.

I guessed that I didn't have what Jessie called "the collective mentality." Although I often felt empathy, I never felt that I was part of a tribe, clan, race, or generation. I think Jessie beat that trait out of me.

I read Howard's End by E.M. Forster, Unearthing Atlantis by Charles Pellegrino, and In and Out of the Garbage Can by the granddad of Gestalt Therapy, Fritz Perls.

Still unrelieved, I even tried Danielle Steel and Harold Robbins again.

Near the end of September, 1991, I faced the annual fiscal report. B&R had made one hundred and sixty million dollars, down only eighteen percent on the year. It would be released on October 1st and would calm everyone's fears regarding my leadership–but it wasn't exactly a glowing endorsement of my first full year at the helm, either.

In the spring of 1992, John passed me The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay, and it wasn't until then that I felt inspired by another person's story.

Diane and I met secretly with every salesperson in the company, and offered them greater incentives–a company trip to the Caribbean at a luxury resort, a one percent increase in bonus, and greater allowances for vehicle and flight travel–if they made their projections.

On June 30, tens of thousands of people were forced to evacuate their homes and businesses in Wisconsin and Minnesota after a freight train tank-car containing benzene derailed, releasing clouds of toxic vapors. No fatalities were reported, but the people of Minnesota were irate to find that industry was shipping dangerous chemicals by rail. Dad was involved in helping with the evacuation.

On July 11, John and I accepted a Sunday supper invitation at Laura and Paul's home in Vesey, for the celebration of their six-year-old daughter Kelly's birthday. I bought Kelly a summer outfit and John bought her a super-soaker, as well as a slightly smaller one for Maggie, her four-year-old sister.

Their house was a four bedroom bungalow that was "a work in progress," to quote them. The lawn was weedy and dry, but recently mowed. It was a sizable property with lots of potential. The foyer was spanking clean, and the rest of the house, though nothing special, was shipshape, except for Kelly and Maggie's rooms. Religious icons such as crosses and pictures of Christ and the Virgin Mary adorned every room, even the bathrooms.

Laura was as thin as she had been before her pregnancy. Paul was still a compact, muscular man; he was a little heavier than before, but his face had grown full of compassion. I could tell that parenthood sat well with him. He seemed happy, and so did Laura. Maggie was a black-haired, chubby four-year-old, and Kelly was a thin, dark-haired girl who resembled Laura.

Laura's parents couldn't make the party because they were in the Bahamas at a relative's wedding, but they had asked for pictures. When we were done, Laura and Paul served birthday cake, and after Kelly had opened her many gifts, we took more pictures.

"I sure wish Dad could be here for it," Paul said.

"I wish Mom could be here for it," John replied with some force. "He should be dead!"

"John, how can you say such a thing in front of the kids?" I said.

"I didn't bring it up."

"You have to let it go," Paul returned. "You have to forgive."

"Not for this," John said.

"He's truly sorry," Paul said, "and it's eating at you. Look at how you snapped just now." John frowned. "If you don't help me with getting him out," Paul continued, "he'll die in prison. He doesn't have a chance without us both on the same side. You call yourself a Catholic, but you're behaving like a Protestant."

"You're being an ass," John said. "I didn't come here to talk about this."

"The girls need to meet Grandpa Williams before they start hearing all the horrible things about him in Vesey," Laura said.

"The stories are true," John retorted, growing aggravated.

"That's the point," I said. "They'll hate him for sure after they hear all of them from strangers, and don't know their Grandpa to balance it."

"Jessie would be on my side if she were here," John said.

I drew up and took his hand. "What an odd thing to say, John. Are you aspiring to Jessie's moral standard, or to a liberal Catholic one?"

He sighed. "Okay, I'll think about it."

One week later, John and I left for two weeks in France to see Ruth and Nazer Brown and to live with them in their castle. I read Güünter Grass' The Tin Drum:

'Always somewhere behind me, the Black Witch.

Now ahead of me, too, facing me, Black.'

The Gurucet Castle was in Val-D'Oise, north of Pontoise Airport. It was formerly owned by Sol Dél Technique, who bought it from a winery estate, Château Freecourt Chevelle, which was tied to the Domaine de la Vallée-Conti, and before that, the land belong to the feudal name of Limbourg–but primarily, it isn't a castle at all.

Jessie had always referred to it as one, so the description inside B&R stuck. It was a series of buildings with two large, high turrets to the east side, off the main house, which was joined to three other large wings. The main house alone would have been perhaps six or seven thousand square feet and had five bedrooms, all with separate bathrooms, fireplaces, and balconies.

In the front was an enclosed courtyard-orchard with grape vines and apple, pear, plum, and cherry trees. Much of the gardeners' salaries were taken in the form of harvest of the estate.

To the west side of the main house, in a one-floor flat style, was the largest of the wings, used for entertaining guests and hosting conferences and parties. Down from it were the kitchen and laundry wing, and down from there, the servant quarters. Even these were luxurious and were rented monthly to tourists.

Below these buildings lay huge wine cellars, but the backyard was the most spectacular part. It was treed with pines, figs, olives, mahogany, chestnut, and oak, with Greco-Roman statutes, black iron-rod fencing with clumps of vines wrapped around them, benches throughout, a change room for the large in-ground and heated pool, and a bocce ball lawn-court.

Further back, the lands were cultivated for berries and vegetables. The flower gardens in the front yard were also wonderful. We hated to leave it, especially for work at the office in Frémécourt. It was hard to leave it even for Paris, but John had never been there.

It was in Paris with John, on one of my days off, that I caught sight of Kelsey Kratten's face for a brief moment in a crowd of tourists in The Jardins du Trocadero, across the Seine near the Eiffel Tower.

The crowd was thick and I wasn't one hundred percent certain, so I didn't say anything to John about it. But I imagined it was like being told by your doctor that you had cancer and were going to die: you would immediately go for a second opinion. That's how I felt for the rest of the trip–as if I were waiting for the second round of tests to come back. I pricked up my ears and felt that my one hope, my only hope, was to not see his face again in Paris, and I didn't.

In August, I missed my period and John and I had our first serious fight since we had become lovers–and all for nothing. It was a false alarm.

Oral contraceptives seldom failed, but the fear of its failure was seldom dampened by that knowledge. It had a ninety-five percent success rate, and most of the time its failure was due to human error. At B&R, we made the cyclical routines, blister packs, and instructions as simple as possible given the FDA guidelines. At Gurucet, we were working on a pill for men that would temporarily lower sperm counts, designed to be used by couples in combination with the female birth control pill, plus we were close to perfecting an abortion pill and a morning-after pill.

That was how it started. I stated my fears out loud, and one thing led to another.

"I'm not having a baby right now," I said. "I'll have the pregnancy ended first."

John turned pale, and I immediately regretted saying it.

"If you had an abortion and it was my baby, it would be impossible for me to stay with you."

"You would divorce me over that?" I said, shocked. He nodded. "You don't love me enough?" I continued. "You're in love with an idea, but you won't live up to it. Look at you with your dad. You're a hypocrite–typical of a man, wanting to tell a woman what to do with her body, yet not living by his own moral code."

"What other men and women decide, married or whatever, that's their business. If you become pregnant with my child, you can't abort it without destroying our relationship."

"Then you're staying home to look after it. I can't leave the helm right now, they would dismiss me as a leader. I would never be able to go back, either."

"What are you talking about?" he asked, raising his voice. "You own the company."

"That's nothing, that's money."

"Your career is more important than mine."

"It's not a career, it's a mission–and yes. I earn more, I have more responsibilities, I'm beholden to thousands of people. It's your baby! You want it! You can't have everything both ways. Men are selfish, that goes without saying, but Christ, you're going to make me have a baby I don't want and then say you won't stay home to look after it. How pig-headed is that?"

"Compared to what? Murder?"

"John, how dare you?"

I left for two days to Duluth.

"At least he didn't throw a Bible at you," Diane said when I told her the story.

I laughed, but heavy-heartedly. John phoned a day later and told me that he missed me. I told him I wasn't pregnant. He said that if it ever happened and we hadn't planned for it, he would stay at home for the first years. We made up and I returned to Vesey, relieved. I missed him dearly.

At the end of September, B&R was expecting big things financially: the preliminaries were positively encouraging, but when I read the report, I was shocked to see that we'd doubled the profit to three hundred million dollars. I called Diane, who was in New York City meeting with Brad Paul, the VP of the Eastern Seaboard. Twice she made me repeat it. She immediately saw the problem for us.

"Tab some millions over to Gurucet for research," she said. "Let's buy out the last two capital investors and purchase some real estate in New York City for our office."

I agreed. It's what Jessie would have done.

"When your harvest is good," she'd said one time, "pack it away for the lean times. You can always guarantee the lean times–what's not so sure is the harvest, let alone a good one."

In November I read Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe, maybe the most depressing American novel I had read besides The Sound and the Fury by James Faulkner or The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.

On Saturday, November 28 in the Vesey Review, beside the story of a Chinese Boeing 737 crashing in the southwestern part of the country and killing all one hundred and forty-one aboard–China's worst civilian air disaster up to that time–was a story by Dave Zacroix retelling the death of Jessie and the whereabouts of her murderer. He alleged that Kelsey Kratten was wanted in connection with the bombing of an abortion clinic in Seattle.

Below that story was a quote from the defeated presidential candidate George Bush: "I can only say that it was my administration and my campaign," he was quoted. "I captained the team and I take full responsibility for the loss." A picture of Presidents Clinton and Bush shaking hands was beside one of Al Gore and his wife waving to a crowd in Washington, DC.

For Christmas, John bought me a ten-CD set of all of Sergei Rachmaninoff's RCA recordings as pianist and of Rachmaninoff's own works as conductor. He also bought me a CD player and a complete music system. I bought John a hand-signed, limited edition of James Lumbers' The Sun Never Sets, a dreamscape of Ernest Hemingway, John's favorite writer, at his typewriter in Cuba.

In January 1993, I read The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Laughable Loves by Milan Kundera, as well as The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy.

At the office it was busy, and it looked like we were well on our way to an outstanding year. Even from France, the reports from Gurucet were good.

One of Jessie's plans had been to build a large, nationally-funded research facility for the purpose of investigating medical issues involving women. It was to be: named The Women's Medical Progress Foundation, but I'd decided to change the name to The Jessie Basle Foundation for Women.

Diane and I began to look for candidates to head it up. Jessie had already purchased the land next to the Basle Building, and I wanted two female candidates to run it in tandem: one to raise the funds, one to administer it.

We began interviewing over the summer. I found a suitable administrator in August: a woman my age, Alison Johnson. She was a former nurse who was extremely qualified. She had run an abortion clinic in Minneapolis-St. Paul, a halfway home for abused woman in Cleveland, and was currently running a successful medical walk-in clinic for women in Duluth, Point to Health Wellness Center, staffed completely by female doctors. She had a Masters in Medical Business from the University of Minnesota and had done her thesis on rehabilitation solutions for women who had been traumatized in abusive relationships. She was a sturdy English woman, a Protestant by heritage, and after the third interview, I was fairly certain that she was a lesbian and an atheist–not that I dared to ask, nor did I really care.

She dressed flamboyantly, with scarves, sunglasses, and unique clothing. She was offbeat, yet I found her pleasant and attractive, and sincerely interested in women's causes. I read her thesis and decided that I would ask her opinion on Kelsey Kratten.

After I told her that she was welcome to have the job and discussed her salary and other matters–Diane and I had previously presented the building's architectural plans and the general goals of the foundation–I told her the story of Kelsey stalking Jessie and me, of Jessie's assassination, and of how I was still nervous that I was being stalked by him.

"I think he won't come after you," she said. "He's obsessed with you from afar. I call them the Virgin Mary Abusers. They idealize a woman abstractly, but stalk them, even terrorize them, by hurting the people around them. Your husband should be made aware of the possible danger."

This was news to me, but it made tremendous sense. I told John that evening.

"Let's hire someone to track him down," he suggested.

"Like who, though?"

"Pace Kunhardt has left the force and is working out of Minneapolis-St. Paul region in the security business."

"How did you hear this?"

"Your dad."

That weekend, we made an appointment to visit Pace in his Twin City office. It just so happened that on Sunday, the Salvation Army was holding a statewide convention in the Twin City area on the subject of homeless people. Eric was to speak, and Dad was to play in the band. Eric was coming up with Grandma and Grandpa the next day. John and I were staying overnight, so we visited the hotel first, then joined up with Dad and went to see Pace.

The first thing a person noticed about Pace was his eyes: they were bright, dark, focused, and full of humor. That hadn't changed over the years. He now had lots of gray hair and his fingers were becoming slightly gnarled with the onset of arthritis, but for a man of fifty, he was in good shape and still attractive. I could see why Dad had been so watchful of him back then when Pace and Mom were so often together.

"Criminals are easier to hunt than provocateurs," he said after I told him everything I could think of on the subject of Kelsey Kratten. "I'll tell you why. The extremist communities harbor provocateurs, even giving them cash and sanctuary. Look at the IRA. I think this guy may be a hard one, but I'll give it a go. My wife recently died, and I'll tell you, I have far too much time on my hands. I'll get to work on it right away. At times, I might be inclined to trail any of you three. I think your employee, Alison, may be onto something. Christian, do you ever sense yourself being watched?"

Dad rubbed his beard, obviously stumped. "I always thought it was Cathy watching over me, but maybe."

"John?"

"Never."

"But you have?" he asked me. I nodded.

"When you get the eerie feeling," he said, "phone my cell." He passed us his business card. "If I don't pick up, leave a message–just at the cell number, mind you. As for the financial matters, I'll have a contract to the Basle Building by end of business Monday.

"One last thing, and perhaps you are already aware of it. The division for forensic psychiatry for those not criminally responsible at the Central State Hospital at Waupun— called now the Dodge Correctional Institute— is holding a hearing in December on whether to move Ricicot Decoté to a minimum security facility. I'll give you the date and details on Monday as well."

We shook hands and parted.

About Ricicot Decoté, I was shocked. Kurt Knass had promised the jury that Ricicot would be placed in a maximum security institution for those deemed not criminally responsible, and that they need not fear him hurting anyone again. It seemed like a joke, but I also didn't want to prejudge it. I didn't want to get angry.

Despite this news, John and I had a wonderful weekend, and the marvelous turnout at the convention made Dad happy.

In October, I began interviewing candidates for the job of chief fundraiser.

One woman, a Catholic mother of nine, Lorrain St. James, had come recommended by no less an authority than my husband. I wasn't happy about it, but I gave the old lady an interview out of courtesy. She was overweight, frumpy, and her face had sunk in on her, giving her a bulldog look.

"John thinks the world of you," I said, getting the niceties out of the way. "How long have you lived in Vesey?"

"Since I was fifteen. I'm sixty-five now, so that's fifty years."

At least she could add...I was overjoyed, then I realized I was thinking like Jessie and put my sarcasm away.

"You raise funds in the area?"

"For Christian shelters, for abused women, street kids, and for public halfway homes here and in Wisconsin."

Her figures were impressive, but I just couldn't picture her soliciting funds on a national level. Now that I had met her, I had the sense that there was something unique about her, but I was still hesitant. "We'd need millions of dollars every year," I said. "Our goals far exceed anything you've collected before in your career."

She smiled. "It's not a career, it's a mission. I tag and tow all makes of vehicles; none get under the radar. Bicycles, tricycles, and roller-blades too."

I laughed, and recalled Jessie's words to Mom about it not being a career, but a mission.

"Within a year of taking the job," she boldly continued, "I'll raise three million dollars, or resign."

This aggressive stance caught me off-guard. "What do you think of abortion?"

"It's wrong, but politically it should be left up to the woman."

"You started up a girl's softball little league in the Vermillion Range Area. You developed a state-wide swimming instruction system for girls which is named after you and is still up and running. You were the representative for Pine County in the assembly. How could you possibly raise nine children at the same time as all that?"

"I had six girls. Back then, there was no organized baseball league for them to play in, or swimming lessons for them to take. So I did it for them, as a practical matter. I represented the assembly after they were old enough to fend for themselves, but I had been a Town Councilor for Vesey for twenty years even as I raised them. It was no picnic, but they have done quite well."

"You were a Democrat."

"A conservative Democrat. An Independent now."

I knew that Jessie would have liked this woman. She would have hired her on the spot, Christian or not–but I needed Alison Johnson to approve of it.

"Your husband died some years back?"

"We were married forty-five years. He was a good provider. He worked his whole adult life for his family."

"Any dark secrets I should know?"

"I've never been on welfare or charged with an offense. I've raised money for public causes for a long time without a hint of scandal. I use large public banks and only impeccable chartered accountant firms to keep my books."

"You're a religious woman?"

"My husband was a Catholic and they didn't allow mixed marriages back then, so I converted, but I tried to live by the Catholic precepts, even if others around me didn't."

"How's your health?"

She looked over at me. "I'm not likely to complain at this point. I always told my kids, to whine was to sin against life." She almost sounded like a combination of Mother Theresa and Jessie.

I set up an interview with Alison.

Diane had sat in on the first interview. "She's the one," she said after Lorrain had left.

Chapter Twelve

In 1993, The American Medical Association lobbied successfully against President Bill Clinton's healthcare reform plan, which would have guaranteed health insurance for everyone. Jessie once called the AMA the most successful union in America besides the Major League Baseball Players Association; however, it publicly supported the right of women to obtain an abortion, and for that reason she didn't often publicly criticize them.

The hearing date for Ricicot's petition to transfer to a minimum security facility was delayed at our request to Wednesday, February 10, 1994. Grandma, Grandpa, Dad, Ingrid, and I attended, and all of us planned to speak, but that wasn't possible. The families of all the victims showed up as well, making the same demand. One from each victim's family was given a chance to speak, and two from ours, since Mom was a police officer.

Kurt Knass continued to represent Ricicot, and we felt fortunate enough that Richard Daylke joined us that day. Though he was a reserved man and hard to get to know, I'd come to respect him. He was a decent sort, concerned only about justice for Mom, protecting society, and preventing Ricicot from claiming any more victims. He still truly believed that Ricicot Decoté wasn't essentially different from a bank robber who killed in the commission of his crimes.

John was teaching Bernard Shaw in his second term, and I was reading Shaw's Saint Joan and other works. John had also passed along to me Ninja by Eric van Lustbader. One of his top students had called it the best novel he'd ever read. Though absorbing, compared to Shibumi, it lacked the abstract component that drives great works, especially read against the background of Shaw's philosophy.

Catching moments to read wasn't difficult. I read on the way to the office, during trips to Chicago, New York City, or Minneapolis-St. Paul, in the evenings, or on a day like that day, waiting around The Dodge Correctional Facility for the proceedings to start. Forty people had come to the hearing, including Dave Zacroix. He looked much the same as always: he had cut his curly locks off and the diamond ear-stud was gone, but he still had that mischievous look, perhaps more cantankerous, which I found all the good journalists developed.

Several in-house psychiatrists were to speak for Ricicot; Maria Vitoulis had also come to speak. We heard that she was writing a book on his sensational crime, and I hated her for that. She looked the same, only twenty pounds heavier. I remembered how effective she was for the defense at the trial.

The attestants were allowed only several minutes each to speak. Five people sat on the committee, all white, middle-aged men in gray suits.

From the first people to testify, I was surprised to discover that Ricicot was allowed out into the garden for an hour every day, five days a week. He had become an avid gardener, as well as an eager reader. His favorite books were The Self in Transformation by Herbert Fingarette, and The Life of St. Francis of Assisi by Nesta de Robeck. He also read true crime books and painted still-life pictures of floral bouquets.

He had made no public apology for the murder of Mom, only saying in one psychiatric report that it was an unfortunate accident and he hadn't meant to kill her.

He had two computer hours a week, and ten minutes of supervised time online. He had his daily showers with the other segregated prisoners, and there had been alleged incidents of him having forced sex with some younger, mentally disabled inmates.

"In group therapy he has remained open in showing his deep feelings of remorse," one doctor said, a young lifeless-looking man named Dr. Vernon. "He has cooperated with the institution in such things as location and counseling. His psychosis improves every day. With these new guidance sessions, combined with chemical therapy and electroshock treatment–which he has agreed to take–he'll one day be cured. In his appeals, based on his improved psychiatric evaluations, the state of Wisconsin has no choice but to reward real positive change with some incentive to continue with the change.

"Transformation such as we are trying to effect in Ricicot is painful and difficult. It's what he deserves, and it's only right. He feels guilty about his appeals, but what can he do but try to improve his lot inside the system–especially if he is inside forever, as he realizes may well be the case? He hopes he'll soon be cured, but knows he will never be free."

It was hard to stomach. I felt like Richard Daylke should have been able to rebut each attestant.

"For his own reasons," Maria Vitoulis said when it was her turn, "he has found the comfort in the words of Jesus Christ and the Bible. While this doesn't indicate a cure, it shows a willingness to be cured. As an act of contrition, he has revealed a second burial gravesite in The Black River Forest Reserve and confessed to the earlier killings of four young boys. He is co-operating 100 percent with his professional stewards, from the psychiatrists to the guards, and this, too, reveals a willingness to be cured."

"My feeling presently is that I'm recovered," Ricicot said, speaking lastly for his side. "The Lord has come into my heart, and sexually perverse desires no longer obsess me. I'm lonely, but I ill-treated my brothers and sisters, my wife and my mother, and so many others who might have loved me. I killed eleven innocent people, one a police officer. For these abhorrent crimes, I'm truly sorry, but I'm no longer a dangerous offender who merits the maximum security facilities."

"It's alleged that he has twice raped younger, disabled inmates," Richard Daylke accused loudly, when allowed to speak, "and he no more believes in God than do the psychiatrists who testify here today on his behalf after swearing on the Bible. It is what you need to do to catch a break from this system, and he knows it. The guards and psychiatrists think they are curing him, but they are actually showing him how to hone his past experience into a reoccurring vision more spectacular than a waking dream, recalling the nights of blood sacrifice with anticipation for future live events. He recollects his sexual killings like we recall our birthday parties and weddings. His indelible photographic memory of the horrible crimes makes this possible. He may not regard himself as a genius, but don't underestimate him. Reports exist from other prisoners that he can ejaculate while in a trance under the showers without touching himself. He has told them that he has a good memory. He is joyous in the knowledge that he has the strength of character to mislead everyone with whom he comes into contact. Be fooled at the cost of other victims, and be damned if you are!"

"My mom would see through this," I said when it was my turn. "She would know that Ricicot isn't sorry for her death. On the contrary, he relishes the fact that he has killed a police officer. She was a wonderful wife to our father, an incredible mother to me and Ingrid, and a terrific daughter to my two loving grandparents. They've all come here today.

"How can there be a cure for a supposed mental illness like Ricicot's? It isn't like Alzheimer's or heart disease. Common sense tells us that this case is an issue of good and evil. How can it be otherwise? Mental illness is a metaphor for a social, spiritual, or cultural disorder. A physical disease of the brain hasn't caused Ricicot to do all of these deliberate, repugnant acts, many of them ceremonial. You know it is so. You know it isn't a disease at all–it's immoral behavior. He is evil, and no amount of pills will pick up a man so spiritually far down. Chemicals won't make him a man, nor will they undo his repulsive personal history. He isn't insane, he is evil. He made the human the object of his scorn–the street kids–and abducted and killed them."

Ricicot kept his eyes lowered through the whole affair, but I could sense that after our statements, especially Richard's and mine, he was livid.

I didn't realize I would pay in full later for this relatively minor triumph.

In March, we heard that the committee from Wisconsin State Justice turned down The Dodge Correctional Facility petition for a lower security level for Ricicot Decoté. We had a family gathering that Sunday at the Ruckerts and celebrated.

The next week, builders broke the earth for the building that would house The Jessie Basle Foundation for Women, and we had an outside ceremony in the cold air. I noticed Pace Kunhardt in the crowd and felt much safer. About one hundred and fifty people showed up, but there were also some protesters.

I'd tried to make peace with the church people, but the radical element wouldn't follow the lead of the council. They were the remnants of Gerry Bowers' old crowd at The Star Christian Association for Revelation of the Ecclesiastics, now called CUP: Common Cause for Unborn People. It was wrong, but what could I do except try to buy them off?

I had Brad Paul approach them in April and offer them a lump sum of money, but being better than us, as they put it, they refused and promised to continue picketing. I was ashamed, and didn't make that mistake again.

I was reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac–the "Beat," "Hippy," and "Punk" movements all seemed the same from my vantage. With the aid of sex, alcohol, and reefer, their adherents became selfish, mindless youths, pursuing supernatural magic, endless blind alleys, and, most importantly, whatever gave them pleasure.

I was also reading The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain, probably the most important American humorist ever. It was too bad he spoke the language of his time so exactingly. It was a more racist regime then than now, and I often found myself bothered by his terms and descriptions when reading his works.

In July, Kelsey Kratten was arrested in Vancouver, Canada–and as ill-luck would have it, broke loose from the RCMP (the Canadian national police force) and escaped to Europe. He had been implicated in the shooting death of a Jewish Canadian doctor who delivered abortions in both Seattle and Vancouver.

In September, John started a new year with grade twelves at Vesey High School. He was opening his course with two of my favorite novels, Bread and Wine by Ignazio Silone, and Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis.

Diane and I were preparing the fiscal statement for B&R. I was reading How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World by Harry Browne, and How to Prosper in the Coming Bad Times by Howard J. Ruff, which Dad had given to me some time ago.

On Monday at the office at the Basle Building, I received an unsigned, handwritten, post-dated letter from Budapest, Hungary. I rushed into Diane's office and broke up a meeting between her and Brad Paul, who was in from New York City. I read it to both of them: "Dear Natalie Basle, I'm writing to let you know that I cannot protect you, as the forces of evil have driven me from America, my beloved country. Cloven has told me that you're in impending danger. I hope to return in time. Warn your dad and your husband of their peril. Love, Kelsey Kratten."

Diane nearly jumped out of her chair and read the letter again.

"Damn," she whispered. "He means to kill John and Christian."

Brad Paul was a curly, fair-haired vice president in charge of the east coast, especially New York City. He was forty years of age, but looked twenty-something. I'd often heard from inside sources that he was a womanizer and a Bohemian, but he'd never had a complaint lodged against him from any of the staff. Jessie had always tolerated him: his sales ability were next to none and he was dedicated, not only to B&R, but ironically to women's rights.

Jessie had once remarked to me not to worry about the rumors, and that he was too handsome to be straight. I had wondered about it ever since, but couldn't decide one way or the other whether he was gay. His personal tastes were kept close to his vest, and he always came to company functions alone. But that wasn't a sign of being gay, that was a sign of protecting your reputation: if you brought a different date to the company functions all the time, people would think you were a philanderer; if you brought the same one all the time, people would think you were taking advantage of someone without getting married. Jessie said to me one time, "You think these personal matters are nobody's business, and they aren't, but that doesn't matter. Everybody makes these kinds of judgments despite that. Your reputation never gets a holiday."

Brad asked also to see the letter. "I don't think it means that," he said at once, looking worried. "Phone Pace."

How he knew about Pace, I had no idea. But it was obviously sound advice, so I left and phoned Pace only to find out that he was in Europe. "Where?" I asked his secretary.

"Budapest, Ms. Basle," she informed me.

"I'll be darned," I said to myself when I hung up. I phoned John and Dad, and both of them were only mildly concerned.

The fiscal year end for B&R was exceptional. In early December, we threw a huge Christmas party at The Duluth Hilton, with a superb supper followed by an open bar with free taxi service home. No one made speeches.

The following Monday, we passed out a progress report at the office with the Christmas bonuses. The next day, I had a disappointing meeting with Pace. The bills were quite high, and he'd followed Kelsey to Hong Kong and lost track of him in Malaysia.

The day after that, Paul Williams asked me to give John a copy of a poster with Christ speaking to the Apostles. It read, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained. John 20:22-23."

On a separate note, Paul had handwritten, "The sacrament of absolution is given by the priest after a true contrition for sin and a firm purpose of amendment on the part of the penitent. In the Catholic Church, when absolution is granted the sinful are forgiven– thus you must forgive!" I put it on his bed. I thought Paul was right in pursuing this. That night, John and I talked about it.

"If you come with me," John said, "I'll try to face him on Christmas Day."

Thus, on Christmas Day we found ourselves sitting at a bare table in a dull gray visiting room at the minimal security facility Saint Louis County Prison and Correctional Services.

I could see that John felt awkward, and that he wished he hadn't come. He believed that he'd been browbeaten by Paul and I–and after all, it was true. He must practice what his religion so ardently preached, as we kept telling him in one form or another. He seemed defenseless against us.

I knew he feared that he loved me too much and was a sap. The week before, I had used the bed as a trampoline. I was in my little red teddy, taunting him, jumping all over him and trying to rip off his underwear. He smelled good all the time and I loved him, but I also made fun of his timidity. I worried that perhaps he resented it. That was why he sat there in that dreary establishment with me. It was the last place in the world he wanted to be, especially at Christmas–but I thought reconciling with his father would give him courage. It was an experiment of sorts.

Besides, even Dad had been the most persistent of all of us. None of us would let the issue die. For differing reasons, we all wanted a reunification.

"I hope Paul gets here before I have to face him," he said.

"You've put it off for more than a decade," I returned, flicking my seasonal red dress above my knees. "I think you can handle it. Besides, you're hardly alone, lover boy." I reached over and kissed him on the mouth.

"It's the snow storm," he said. "It stressed me out." He took my hand. "It's a hell of a way to spend Christmas," he said dejectedly. "Are you sure you want to be here?"

"I love my father and I have every reason to. You have good reasons to hate yours, but if you can have a relationship with him, I would be proud."

He stared down at the surface of the table, then splayed his hands on it. "I still feel like I'm betraying my mother," he said in a low voice. "I know that I must try to forgive him and let go of this, but it's so hard."

"You're the Catholic," I said with a smile. "It's all about forgiveness. Learn to live with it."

"A Catholic through and through," he said, "just like Mom–but just now, you sounded so much like Jessie."

"Hello, son," came a voice from behind us.

We turned and looked up. Stacy wore a battleship-gray shirt and pants with "St. Louis County Correctional Facility" printed prominently in black on the pant legs and in white on the shirt. Both the pants and shirt were new. He was now clean-shaven–even the moustache was gone, and his hair was shaved as well–but his eyes were bright. I could see that this was a special moment for him. An uncomfortable silence followed, and I nudged John.

"Hello," he whispered.

"I'm so glad that you have come, John," Stacy said and sat across from us. "Hello, Nat. I've waited so long to meet you."

I reached over, and with a warm smile planted firmly on my lips, I shook his hand.

"If you'll forgive me for saying so," I said, "the night my mother talked to you in downtown Duluth, I was there. You distributed the word of Jesus to the passers-by. Do you recall it?" He nodded. "That night, you had the appearance of a haunted, tormented man, but now you seem transformed into a wholesome person."

To my surprise, he blushed, that universal human trait of shame. "I'm sorry if I seemed to be tongue-tied," he said. "I'm nervous. I want to tell you so much."

Again, a silence followed. "John, I can imagine how horrible you must feel upon seeing me," he continued. "The murder of your sweet mother is indefensible–but this proves that your heart is good. I thank you again for coming. What I did is beyond redemption, a repulsive, unforgivable act. Not a day goes by that I don't pay for it a hundredfold. I'm so sorry to have caused you so much pain."

John rose. I could tell that he could barely stand to hear even one more word. It looked like he might make a dash for the door and run away. I took his hand.

"Please, John," Stacy begged, "sit. Just for another moment. It's more than I deserve, but please." With a tug from my hand, John sat back down. His face was beet red. The tone of Stacy's voice had brought him to pity, and it had scared him.

"I heard of your marriage," Stacy continued, talking now to me. "Through Paul, I've seen the pictures. You're a lovely couple, and I'm so happy for you. Paul has told me how well you're doing. You run B&R single-handedly."

I laughed softly. "Without my senior executives, I'd be lost."

"I'm sure that isn't true, at least not the way Paul tells it. Oh, here's Paul now."

Paul ambled up to the table and smiled. He had spiked his short, jet-black hair with mousse, and was dressed in distinctive casual clothes that were bright, but not provocative. With his developed upper body and his tan, he looked like a single man on the prowl, and I wondered if he was. They all hugged, and I saw that John was emotional.

"Thanks for coming, Nat," Paul said. "It's a very special Christmas for me because of it."

"Bless you," Stacy said, and tears fell from his eyes. "Through her two sons, Kelly still lives."

John wiped his eyes too. "I sincerely believe that's true."

In January of 1995, I started the year off by reading two books I'd received from Ingrid for Christmas: Lao Tzu by Tao Te Ching, a book presenting the thought of Taoism, a philosophy she was into presently, and On Art, Religion, Philosophy by G.W. F. Hegel, a philosopher who Jessie had once called the village idiot of Germany.

Ingrid was in her fourth year of medical school, and had decided to specialize in Ear, Nose, Throat, or ENT.

The American economy began to roar, and after years of resisting the temptation, we finally invested heavily in NASDAQ stocks, especially in new technology companies. At the urging of B&R investors, we focused particularly on computer and computer-related businesses. This would turn out to be a costly mistake, one that I believe Jessie wouldn't have made.

In February, in New York City, Diane and I saw a Harold Pinter play, The Tea Party. Brad Paul took us to it, and we had a lovely evening despite the foul weather.

In March, I met again with Pace, and found that he was frustrated.

"I watched for Kelsey in seven different countries for months," he said. "I've spotted him twice, and both times he made his escape. I even hired locals, one in Hong Kong and one in Budapest. The kid's a dead ringer for an American psychopath: gaunt, fierce, steely-eyed, a shaved head, piercings–he's got it all. I've got good, clear photos–but damn, it's like I need an army. I think perhaps I'm not the man to get him. I don't mean to alarm you, but sometimes I felt like he was watching me, and one time, I know he was. He left this."

He passed me a handwritten note, and I read it aloud.

"Without her near, time drags

Slowly, like doddering old hags.

In my life, I fight for Cloven,

But when she's not close, it's hard-woven."

"Jesus, Pace," I said, getting sick with worry. "Don't leave me to this monster."

"I found it under my pillow in my hotel room in Budapest. He could have just as easily killed me. I'm not your man. If you insist that I should continue, I will, but let me hire someone else as well."

I agreed, and in May, he introduced me to a strange man: Brack Sanders. Brack was an unusually quiet and little man, maybe even a dwarf, but not round–he was rather lean, and weighed not even a hundred and ten pounds. He was muscular and wiry, stood about five feet high, and was thirty years old or so. He had thick black hair everywhere that I could see. It came up through his shirt collar and out the ends of his shirt-sleeves. He wore glasses, and had a look of perplexity as though he might not be that bright. He had dull brown eyes and kept staring at the book on the edge of my desk, Cancer Ward by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, like I might be a cancer victim or something.

The book lay on top of a front page story about an earthquake in Russia, measuring eight Richters in magnitude, which left two thousand dead and hundreds more injured. Poor construction, icy nighttime weather, and the remote location were blamed for the high death toll. Hardship in Russia seemed to go on endlessly.

"I primarily hunt people who have jumped bail," he muttered, "but it doesn't apply now. Right? If I bring him in alive it'll cost twenty thousand, less if it doesn't matter whether he's alive."

"I'm not commissioning a murder," I said, looking crossly at Pace.

"That's what these guys do," Pace said hotly, but not rising. "They give you a choice, dead or alive. The customer's always right. If you want Kelsey brought in alive, just say so. It's not my money, and it's not my call. They say Brack is the best, but he'll bring him in either way you like. Kelsey Kratten is dangerous–you should seriously consider the offer. One day he may kill you."

Brack nodded.

My fingers rapidly tapped the top of my desk. I called in Diane and introduced her to Brack. Brack repeated his offer.

"Jessie would never risk the Basle name over revenge," she said. "Find us somebody else, Pace."

Brack rose out of his chair. "I can bring him in alive. I'm good at this."

"Okay," I said, "Alive. You get nothing except expenses if you kill him." He nodded and they left.

September 1995 was the first time I heard of the army of religionists, the Taliban, who took control of Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, and deposed the government after the Soviets left. I didn't know the politics of it; it was the restrictions on women's freedom that caught mine and Diane's attention. The Taliban promised to unify the country through the establishment of a puritanical version of Islamic religious order. Women were made to wear the burqa (a full-body sack) in public. They were forbidden from schooling themselves, and lost every political freedom. It was rumored that the Taliban were killing any female who defied them in even the smallest matters. I was alarmed, especially since I knew so little of Islam.

Diane and I decided to read the Koran.

"I found it as authoritarian as the Bible in its tone of voice," I said when I was finished. "It's like the scriptures too, so full of resentment."

Diane collected books for us on Islam, Mohammed, and the history of Christians and Muslims wherever and whenever they had come into conflict. For several months, at the condo in the evening after work, we went on tangents about the books we were studying. We drank white wine and read quotes to one another–at least when I didn't travel home to Vesey.

"You can see why Jessie had so little use for religion," Diane responded again and again.

"Jessie always charged that Christianity and Communism had unrepentant hatred for individual liberty, human rights, and pluralistic democracy. I think Islam is in the same boat."

At Christmas, John bought me The World's Largest Anthology of Short Stories, with over one hundred and fifty classic short stories including my favorites, "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes and "The Diary of a Madman" by Nikolai Gogol.

I kicked off the new year by reading them one after another, and decided it was nearly the best book I'd ever read. It included Steinbeck, Dostoevski, James, Poe, Cheevers, Lawrence, Joyce, Conrad, Hawhorne, Greene, Huxley, Doyle, Maugham, Hemingway, Kipling, Hardy, Faulkner, and just about every great writer in the world–and, conversely, less-known writers who in six or seven pages (the print was small) told an exceptionally fine story such as "The Suicide of Private Greaves" by James Moffett.

On March break, 1996, I took John to a resort in Negril, Jamaica, where we stayed in a cottage with a private in-ground pool. It was almost completely enclosed by lush tropical growth. No children were on the resort, and when it grew dark at night, we lit candles by the pool and made love outdoors. It was exciting, despite the fly bites.

I took Malafrena by Ursula K. Le Guin to read by the pool under the afternoon shade, and a sexy whodunit, Foreign Exchange by Larry Beinhart, to read on the plane trips there and back.

In May, Brack Sanders burst unannounced into my office. I would have been furious if I'd had clients or a meeting with staff, but it so happened that I was alone working on the fiscal summaries of expenses, staff salaries, and taxes, which Diane had prepared a report on.

"I can't take him alive," he said, throwing himself in one of the chairs in front of my desk and sitting up. "It's much too dangerous. I knew for some time that Jack Mountbar had trained the clown, but now I've discovered that Kratten has taken to it in a unreal way. I'm not risking it."

"I'll discuss it with Pace," I said, thinking Brack's choice of words was odd, but before he'd reached the door, I'd decided to end his contract. I phoned Pace that afternoon and told him, fully expecting Pace to bow off the case. However, he surprised me.

"I'll start watching you until I find a more suitable person than Brack."

"You have to promise me to take self-defense lessons," John said, when I told him, "and join a shooting range." I balked at the gun suggestion, but agreed to training. I would have refused on both counts, except I'd known for some time that my daily swimming sessions weren't enough exercise–and more importantly, I didn't want John or Dad to worry unnecessarily.

After shopping around, I settled on Glen's Boxercise in the early days of April. It was a hard seventy minute workout three times a week, but my instructor was a very handsome Croatian American, Glen Kaivonovic. His muscular development was excellent, but he was lean, too. He had a handsome head that was too large for his body, but his eyes were kind, full of charm for the ladies, and his black wavy hair pushed out at the back behind his ears. It balanced the whole effect nicely.

He seemed genuinely enthusiastic about attempting to help me into better condition. Though his touch was soft and came too often, it was never too intrusive, and he didn't make me feel uncomfortable for the whole time that I trained with him. It took a month and a half for my muscles to stop aching, but it firmed up every part of my body.

This is some of what I did for the seventy minutes: I started with three minutes of shadow-boxing with five pound weights in each hand, a hundred skips on the rope, fifty jumping jacks, forty curls with a thick iron rod that was at least thirty pounds, twenty sit-ups, ten push-ups, and five minutes of a full box out at the bag, then, without breaks, repeated it four more times. It wasn't for couch potatoes, and by Ingrid's birthday on August 25, I was in the best shape of my life.

She had a pool party, and I wore a skimpy bikini. Laura and Paul came, as did Christina and her new boyfriend, Mike Wood, an integration systems technical supporter for IBM. He was a tall, thin, handsome man who drove a Ferrari. He dressed the part of somebody who could afford premium logos on his clothes, which were all the rage at that time. He had a nice smile and bright, whimsical eyes, but when I tried to engage him in conversation, he quickly excused himself.

Arthur, Ingrid's "beau," was there as well. He was the same as ever: short, cute, with dark curly hair. His brown eyes were friendly, but as always, I found he drank too much. He was working in construction with his father's company, and also building homes part-time with his older brother, who was not only a skilled tradesmen but also managed his own construction team in St. Louis County. Arthur had made it to Northwestern University, but he failed his first year. He blamed it on the beer.

John was at me all day, patting my bum or kissing me on the mouth. I thought we were going to have to leave early so he could get some relief and I could get some loving, but he hurt his back throwing Kelly and Maggie into the pool.

The next day, Emily came into my office, putting coffee and crescent rolls from the Pickle Brine on my desk.

When Jessie had hired her after Diane's promotion to executive, she'd been slim. Since then, she had had three children, and was fifty to sixty pounds heavier.

"Someone's here to see you without an appointment," she said. "Miss Diarchy Kratten."

I went to the curtains and peeked through. Diarchy had long black hair pulled to the back but worked into a frayed arrangement at the front. I thought that Kaze had described her as being five foot seven or something, but she was six feet tall easily, without weighing much over a hundred and twenty pounds either. She was as glamorous a woman as I could imagine. She had sleek curves which her style accentuated, and a face to go with it, as they say. She was dressed like a fashion billboard for the nineties, with fine-looking, youthful bright eyes and silky smooth skin. I could tell that she was a teenager, eighteen or nineteen still, but with the look of perplexity that suffering brings in the young.

"Send her in," I said, returning to my seat and glancing at The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks, which lay out on my desk. Diane had borrowed it weeks ago and returned it this morning. It was one of John's fantasy books, and he thought I would enjoy it, which I had.

Diarchy wore a white halter top and a pair of dress pants, with earrings, an anklet, a necklace with a small gold crucifix, and two diamond rings. We shook hands, and I asked her to have a seat. I could see that she was nervous.

"My brother e-mailed me," she said, "and I thought I should show you the contents of that email, and some past ones. Although it's not much, it reveals his state of mind. I've already given it to the police, but I made a copy beforehand for you. I think he's referring to you when he says 'The Chosen One.' For a long time before he murdered your grandmother, he had been hearing voices–even before he met Gerry Bowers and that crowd. God, I hate those people."

She reached into her purse and handed me several printed pages of text. "I know you must think our family did something wrong in Kelsey's upbringing. Who wouldn't? However, my mom and dad are wonderful people who love one another, and love Kelsey and me too. Long ago, they rejected the tactics of Gerry Bowers and tried to get Kelsey psychiatric help. We have a big, beautiful home in Cleveland on Barcley Street. It's a cul-de-sac in a wonderful neighborhood, bordered by a wooded municipal park where we played together as children. It's a happy neighborhood, and we have wonderful neighbors. We are all still in shock. My mom and dad don't go to church anymore. I think church leaders are wrong to call doctors who give abortions, or business people like your grandmother, killers. We are very sorry for what Kelsey's done."

She rose and left with tears in her eyes.

The pages held four short e-mails from Kelsey Kratten to his sister, each sent from different spots in the world. I found Diane behind Jessie's old desk in Jessie's old office. I loved to visit it as often as I could anyway: it reminded me of all the nice times in the past with Jessie. I still missed her dearly–thank goodness I had John and Diane.

I sat under a tall potted orange tree with miniature hanging oranges and told Diane what had just happened. I read aloud from the earliest email, sent from Bombay, now called, Mumbia: "They've stopped hunting me. I was able to rest and collect my thoughts. Then once again Cloven, the angel of the Lord, spoke to me, saying 'You must soon return to God's Country. The chosen one will soon need you.'"

That's all there was of that one, and I flipped the page. The second one was from Islamabad, Pakistan, and I read it aloud to Di: "'I'm completely free of the forces of The Zionist Order of the New Earth. Satan is less active in this part of the world. Last night the angel of the lord, Cloven, visited me, saying, 'Stay vigilant, your time grows near.' Muslims serve the Lord better than the decadent Christian West.'" I flipped to the third page, the one from Egypt. I was beyond spooked: "'I'm on the Nile now but I've been to the Holy Places. I cherished each one–Mecca, the Wall, and Bethlehem. The Lord is truly with me now. Cloven walks by my side constantly. I've come to realize that all of America is controlled by the ZONE.'"

I flipped to the last page, from Johannesburg, South Africa: "'The rains were bad down on the way here, and the humidity, awful. I had a fever and Cloven didn't visit me, but I recovered in Johannesburg on a mild day with a cool breeze. Then he came in his full regale that night and showed me the splendor of the afterlife. 'You're safe to return home now,' he said, 'the chosen one will soon be struck by the forces of Satan.'"

Diane paced her office floor for a few minutes. "Damn, that's creepy," she whispered at length. Behind her was a large print that I loved: By the Seashore by Pierre Auguste Renoir. "What's the date on that last one?" she asked.

"July 10th, 1996."

"Let's assume he's on his way," she said, changing her voice to a southern twang. "Boxercising is not going to stop this freak. Let's fit in some pistol practice and get ourselves some firearms. I'll phone Ted Nugent for advice."

I laughed. Jessie had called Nugent a venison-devouring, sixties-crazed kook and would have nothing to do with guns. Mind you, she also hated rock and roll.

"It promotes hedonism," she had said. She even disliked folk music, which she called pabulum for socialists. She said the ARA was one of the silliest lobbyist groups on the planet, and that the Constitution no more guaranteed the right to carry automatic rifles than it guaranteed the right to pack rocket launchers.

"I'm serious though," Diane continued, dropping her twang. "Let's get us some small guns to carry in our purses. I'll phone Pace and ask him to help us, and then I'll phone the papers to tell them we've changed our stance on gun-control."

I laughed again, and she came over and hugged me. Of course there was nothing funny about it, but what could we do but laugh?

"Okay, girl?" she pressed.

"Let me think about it," I answered at length.

Chapter Thirteen

As though we didn't have enough to worry about, five days later, on Sunday, September 1, 1996, we heard of the escape of Ricicot Decoté from the Dodge Correctional Faciality at Waupun. It had happened Saturday morning.

On Monday morning, a report was filed by Dave Zacroix in The Vesey Review. Dad phoned me about it; I had him fax it to me. I was trembling mad, and scared too. In my mind, I had already conceded that Diane, John, Dad, and I should get guns. I read the report to Diane: "'In August, without public notification, Ricicot Decoté was moved to the minimum security section of the Central State Hospital,'" I glanced over the fax sheets to show an expression of disbelief. "'Now the public is wondering what happened. How did a dangerous serial killer get back out among us? The manhunt is intense, but I believe the escape was well-planned, and he won't be easily found. I sat through the trial, sentencing, and numerous hearings; if this is insanity, then it also is cunning at its height.'"

I glanced over at Diane and then continued: "'Envision a serial killer, the abductor, torturer and executioner of ten people, and the assassin of one fine homicide detective in her prime–a female police officer who had figured out the case against him, who found him and foiled murder. He sits in front of a computer and downloads text information from Universal Legal Service, Washington, D.C. A guard is there supervising his ten minutes online, but isn't paying much attention to the content.

"I have taken the time to go see what that content was. I was shocked. It was information about a case in Canada where a serial murderer received one hundred thousand dollars for showing where his victims were buried. This means that there are others that Decoté killed, still buried in The Black River Forest Reserve: like Christopher Cordly, Carol Benlid, Belinda Prozny, Anna Lellman, or Cheri McLean, all gone missing years ago from the Waupaca area–all in the time when Decoté was carrying out his horrible torture-murder spree. He downloaded a copy of the trial too, some news reports, and the laws which were made after it.'"

"Richard Daylke was right all along," Diane said. I continued reading from Dave Zacroix's Vesey Review: "'According to Joel Copps, a fellow inmate. Decoté is writing a book. Copps weighs three hundred pounds and has a height of only five feet four inches. His thin hair and glasses add to the effect of his largeness. He killed his mother and his sister when he was twelve years of age, back in 1972. Of all the inmates, Copps knew Decoté the best. 'I think Rici has found a ghostwriter and a publisher,' he told me. 'I never saw the actual words, but he kept a floppy disc on him at all times. He even took it with him into the showers. He told me that he was nearly done.'

"'I'm the only serial killer in America to kill an on-duty cop,' he allegedly told Copps. 'The book will go gangbusters. I've submitted the outline and my first chapter. I've already found an agent, a publisher, and a guy who does ghost writing for anything–no questions asked.'

"Copps pointed out that Decoté was stuck in The Dodge Correctional Faciality State Hospital; there was nothing to do with the money. Decoté's reply to Joel was most telling. He said that he wouldn't be there forever, that he would be out by the millennium. How true that has turned out to be. I was able to visit Decoté's cell. He had a window view that looks over a vegetable and flower garden, at least in the summer months. Besides a single bed, he had a radio-cassette player, a small paperback library–mostly of legal books and investigative crime-stories–and a small desk and chair. Yes, we were treating him much better than he treated his victims.

"'February 10, 1994 was the date of his last request for minimum security. The families of all the victims showed up and spoke; they were outraged that a request should even be entertained. It was, at any rate, flatly refused. A year ago, without public disclosure, medium security temporarily came Decoté's way. To escape remained relatively impossible, although certainly, this was a move in the wrong direction for the public's safety.

"'Decoté immediately offered to increase his counseling time. He allowed the doctors to use extensive electric shock therapy on him–a hard sacrifice, to be sure. He asked to meet with the facility's priest, and fabricated a religious conversion to Catholicism. In April of this year, during a guards' work slow-down over pay, a hostage-taking incident occurred in the maximum security ward. The patients in medium security were temporarily and hastily moved to the minimum security area.

"'This lasted two days, during which two important events resulted for Decoté: first, he tipped off the guards in minimum security about a planned escape by some of the medium security patients who had been moved with him temporarily into the minimum security area. This proved to be a valuable tip. He also made mention in the correct ear that the current hostage-taker was nyctophobic. In the first case, the guards foiled the escape. In the second, the electricity to the maximum security unit was cut as soon as it grew dark. Terrified, the hostage-taker broke down and surrendered to the guards without hurting the hostage.'"

I looked up at Diane and caught her eyes. Like me, she'd paled considerably. "'During this two-day stay in the minimum security unit, Decoté fell over backwards to oblige his captors, including supplying important information. He alleviated even their smallest concerns. With a shortage of cells in medium security, within two months he had been moved to minimum security on a more permanent basis. The public wasn't informed. His long-term goal to get to minimum security within the facility had been realized in a quarter of the time he had projected, according to Copps.

"'On August 24, 1996, with a month of planning behind him, he escaped. Knowing him as I think I do, it was probably a month of wild anticipation as well. He rose early, put on a change of clothes under his uniform, and after breakfast, slipped quietly through the gates. It was just that easy. He raised money inside with sex. He charged five dollars for giving and/or receiving oral sex from either guards or prisoners.

"'According to Copps, he has a stash somewhere in Waupaca County, in a place he called The Bunker. It is underground. Copps thinks that it once had been a landing stage for a deep, but now filled in, iron ore mining vent. Decoté allegedly claimed the place as his own when he was twelve, and brought young male schoolmates there to have rough sex. Joel claims that hidden there, kept in large pickle jars and preserved in formaldehyde, lie trophies from his victims: fingers, toes, nipples, or penises. Supplies like liquor, tinned food, cigarettes, clothes, toiletries, and such had been stored in large, sealed plastic bins as well. Decoté told him it was near a stream where he could bathe at night, or obtain drinking water, or even cool his drinks. He bragged to Copps that he had hidden five thousand dollars in cash there, and I believe it.

"'There you have it. You know that he is well on the way to a place where nobody will find him, Then he will set up a domicile in some neighborhood–pray that it isn't yours."

Diane heaved a sigh in frustration. "About the guns," she said. "I'll set it up in Duluth. You tell John and Christian."

Before the week was out, Diane and I had our first lesson, given by Pace, at the Greater Duluth Shooting Range.

At his suggestion, we both bought Wesson's 38 Specials with two-inch barrels. The first time that I shot mine, I missed the target board altogether. We made commitments to two appointments a week with Pace.

That weekend in Vesey, I read A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle and started Oliver Twist. I stayed in bed with John all Sunday afternoon and evening watching The Godfather, Parts One, Two, and Three. Later that night, after eating, we recited excerpts of erotic poems and stories to each other from Yellow Silk and made love.

For several months, I didn't think about the two psychopaths who had wedged themselves so successfully into my psyche, nor did I see them.

In October, B&R's fiscal statement hit an all time record, going over the two hundred million mark. Diane and I bought out Dad's remaining shares for a million dollars and settled all other accounts, except for the loan we'd backed for the foundation. The builders had contractually signed in July '97, but Diane and I both thought it wouldn't be ready until January '98. The architects kept insisting that the contractual commitments couldn't be met, even by then.

We supplied temporary offices for Alison Johnson and Lorrain St. James at the Basle Building, assuming they were right. The Foundation was up and running, and I knew I'd picked the right two; moreover, they worked well together.

It must be said, though, that the building went up so extremely slowly that it became the butt of jokes around the office. Diane and I muddled through it, but in the back of my mind, I knew Jessie would have broken the contract and found somebody else–or at least had a few heads on a platter.

In November 1996, I read The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich A. Hayek and The Relativity of Wrong by Isaac Asimov.

At Christmas that year, Arthur proposed to Ingrid and she accepted. I told her I was excited and promised to host a bridal shower, but actually I was saddened. He was nice, there was no denying it, and he treated her okay–but he was with the boys all the time, and he and Ingrid fought about it far too much. Moreover, he was training to be a hairdresser, and she was entering medical school. It just didn't seem to fit right to me. They were both decent people, even an appealing couple, but I feared for them.

"I wonder if she's pregnant?" I asked John.

"You aren't reading it right, sweetie. I think they love each other. When she starts school, they aren't going to see each other as much as we do. They'll never fight, just like us. It will be fine. I don't think she's pregnant. She's on the pill."

"How do you know that?"

"It's Vesey."

In the spring of 1997, I held a bridal shower for Ingrid, and forty women showed up. That's indicative of how popular she was in Vesey. Even Jill, Dad's old girlfriend, showed up.

Mindy, Chantal, Christine, Laura, Elena, Carrie, Diane, Grandma, and Melita wore dresses. I wore slacks and a new sweatshirt with my hair pinned up.

That summer I heard nothing of either Ricicot or Kelsey.

John gave me A Change of Climate by Hilary Mantel and What I Live For by Joyce Carol Oates. I also got Umberto Eco's new one, The Island of the Day Before.

In September, we set yet another new record in sales and profits, and I announced that B&R would be closed for two weeks over Christmas with full pay for everyone. I intended to spend the entire Christmas in Vesey, and on Christmas Day, I arrived with Diane at Grandma and Grandpa's. John and Paul were visiting their father.

Diane had stayed overnight with her new friend, Blanche, at our place, but Blanche left first thing in the morning to spend Christmas in Chicago with her children. It was snowing heavily, and when we arrived, we put away our winter coats and boots.

Diane wore a tight-fitting red dress. At forty-seven years old, she still didn't have a single pound of unwanted weight–as it had been all through the years that I had known her–yet her face had lost more of its softness.

My hair was straight down at the back, but enmeshed with thin, curly, green ribbons, and I wore a bright seasonal dress.

Diane made her way into the living-dining area, which held an enormous Christmas tree with a huge number of brightly wrapped gifts underneath it. I loitered in the front hall, following the line of family pictures to the main entrance. Photographs of Mom and Dad, Jessie, John and I, and even of Arthur and Ingrid lined the wall. On the opposite wall, many of the photos were of Uncle Gordon's side of the family: Joseph and his wife, Joan, and their four-year-old daughter, Jacqueline, Pete with his two twins, Ralph and Gord, both eight years old.

John arrived, and I kissed him for a moment.

"How long were you going to stand in the hall?" he asked.

I laughed softly, stuck between the impulse to ask about his visit at the prison with his father and the impulse to go to the kitchen and not hear about it, but his expression released me from any immediate obligation. I knew that one year soon, Stacy would be here for Christmas.

"Can you fix me up some Perrier water and lime," I asked, "and I'll go see if Kate needs help? I promised to be here earlier, but Diane and I stopped downtown for a drink."

In the kitchen, I found Kate hard at work preparing the food for the party. She'd gained weight since the last time I'd seen her, but moved as quickly around the kitchen as ever. Her hair, now completely gray, had been cut short and curled back behind her ears.

"Give me a hand, dear," she said after we'd hugged. "The stuffed mushrooms need to come out of the microwave."

I found a pair of oven mittens and went to work. "Where's Grandma?"

"She's hiding. She promised to send to some extra help for tonight. There's over twenty of us, and I'm too old for this."

"You look wonderful. I'm sorry I didn't get here earlier."

"There are pies in the oven that are burnt to a crisp."

I looked in on the pies. They appeared to be fine, and I removed them from the heat. A sense of warmth overcame me while I helped, a feeling I so often had with Kate in my younger years. The original kitchen had been half this size back then, but the bay windows which looked out into the backyard were still there, albeit, back twenty feet, and the landscaped backyard with the falling snow on the large maples and birches looked splendid.

"John wants to start a family," I said.

"Diane can look after the business while you're on maternity," she responded without hesitation. "She's a dynamo."

"Kate, there's something I've always wanted to know, but was nervous to ask. What did you think of Jessie?"

She considered this for a moment. "Your grandmother was a religious woman," she said at length. "She just had the wrong religion."

I laughed. "It's true, you know. She had these harsh moral beliefs, but for me, she had such great patience that I forgave her everything. I loved her dearly and miss her still. Perhaps I always will."

Kate smiled and asked me to check the table.

Ingrid arrived, and after we'd kissed and hugged everyone, we gathered in the living-dining area. The house seemed full of love as I walked around to a wide entrance that led to a large, cool room that acted as a buffer between the garage and the house. As a little girl, I had often played alone in there. In the summer, it stayed dark and cool. It was my favorite spot in the house.

The long hallway before me led to several large rooms and a wide staircase to the second floor, which acted as a larder. I searched for tomato juice in the two fridges under the stairs. I was alone for several minutes, thoughtful but happy. I could hear the noise in the background as Uncle Gordon and Aunt Brenda arrived with Peter and the twins. They all lived together. Peter had been divorced for two years; his wife, Rebecca, had left him for a younger man. She'd completely abandoned the children, saying that she was bored and depressed.

I would never forget what Jessie whispered to me when she'd first met Rebecca:

"Fifty percent twaddle, fifty percent certified."

Grandma Ruckert, on the other hand, said after the divorce, "I don't understand her. She was nice all those years, going to church with us and keeping her vows–then she meets this fool of a man, and wham!"

Jessie had been the one concerned with the material world, whereas Grandma and Grandpa continued to be more concerned with the otherworld. Jessie wanted to affect how things would turn out here on Earth, and the Ruckert's position was of long-suffering compliance to God's plan, which no one but God could see. Their judgment of people was always softened by God's merciful plan. They always prayed for the best. With Jessie, she always expected the worst and summed people up with lightening speed.

"In an adult human being," she once said, "good character is as obvious as fraud."

"There you are," John said, interrupting my thoughts. He passed me a tall glass of bubbling water with a slice of fresh lime. "I've disturbed you?"

"Indeed. As Mom always said, it's the purpose of husbands."

He raised his eyebrows. "When I first met you, Nat, you had the spunk of three women; now what a marvel, to cry and joke in one breath." I rubbed my eyes. Indeed, I was teary-eyed and hadn't realized it. "Every time we're together," he continued, stepping closer, "I have to be a juggler and a poet. It's exciting. It's why I love you so much."

"You're trying to seduce me?"

"Not in Grandpa Ruckert's mansion. I'd never do that. At heart, I'm still a good Catholic."

"I have a surprise for you," I said.

A sudden burst of laughter came from the living room.

"You're focused, like when you come home from the office," John said, rubbing his chin. "So then, should I guess?" I nodded. "You're leaving me for another man?"

"I'd never do that." I sent him a look as though I might entertain another guess, but didn't really give him a chance. "I've decided that you're right: now is a good time to have a family. I've stopped taking the pill."

John took me in his arms. "Wonderful, Buttercup."

"I told you not to call me that," I whispered, only half-protesting.

"You'll be a mommy–you have to learn baby-talk."

I put on a fierce expression, but before I could say anything, he kissed me on the mouth.

"You can put away that Jessie-face," he whispered. "It doesn't scare me anymore. Jessie would want you to have a family."

"I love you," I whispered.

"Let's go tell Dad the good news."

We walked together into the living room, hand in hand, where we found everyone.

"We have news for you, Dad," I said. "We've decided to start a family."

"That's the best Christmas gift you could bring," he said, and hugged me.

"You're the first to know," I whispered. He shook John's hand. Uncle Gordon and Aunt Brenda also hugged us. We sang two Christmas carols, "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing" and "O Come All Ye Faithful."

Everyone seemed especially happy about it, as though I had been converted. I think they thought there was too much Jessie in me, and that having babies would balance it out.

Joseph, Joan, and Jacky arrived with Eric, Julie (Jack Mountbar's ex-wife), and her adopted seventeen-year-old daughter, Mary. Mary was a lovely young woman and had brought a boyfriend, Magnus, a St. Lucian-American with a shaved head, and his father, Godfrey, a gray-haired, wiry islander not nearly as black-skinned as his son, and about forty-five years old.

"Supper is being served," Grandma said when Paul and Laura arrived with Kelly, who was now ten years old, and Maggie, who was eight.

There were twenty-five guests. I helped Grandma and Kate in the kitchen.

When we sat, I attempted to count the number of poinsettias, chrysanthemums– called mums in this household–and floral bouquets in the large living-dining room, but was continually dragged into conversations. My best effort got as high as eighteen.

I sat between Ingrid (who had only one and a half years left of medical school, and then could go for her license and internship), and Diane, whose mood became emotional every time we visited the Ruckerts. Coming here, though wonderful, reminded her of Jessie.

Diane and I had been urging Ingrid to open her future practice in Duluth, and had offered her a rent-free clinic inside the Foundation Building when it was complete, but Dad, Grandma, and Grandpa were against it. They thought we'd be doing abortions or advising women on the street to have them, or at least be instrumental on the front lines of the issue.

Two large pine tables, with dozens of candles, accommodated us comfortably. The enormous Christmas tree and gifts off just to the side added to the effect, and with the platters of steaming dishes, the flaming candles, the pine and holly arrangements, the laughter, the chatter, and the smell of turkey and dressing, I was nearly as emotional as Diane.

I caught John staring at me from across the table. He was happy with my decision, and so was I.

In January, 1998, I tried in earnest to get pregnant. John was kept busy when I was ovulating. It didn't take me long, and by the end of February, I'd conceived.

At Ingrid's wedding in June, I was showing. Ingrid and Arthur's wedding was one of the simplest, and most beautiful I had ever been to. Dad's speech was exceptional. This is what he said after a few preliminaries: "Carlyle, the great precursor to Waldo Emerson and David Thoreau, once said that the Protestant Reformation was the single greatest achievement of Western civilization. If it helped in any way to produce such families as Arthur's family, I concur completely. They're, in my mind, the very definition of a proper and close-knit family, a family with propriety, but also with a sense of humor–and I'm happy now that I'm to be included in it. My family is all here as well today, all twenty or so, from my father to the twins and everyone in between. We miss Catherine and Jessie who were taken from us by worldly violence before their time, but they are watching us today. I'm sure that they are happy for Ingrid and Arthur. We've sustained these casualties. It's our cross to bear. 'No cross, no crown!' as Jessie Basle was fond of saying. The thing is that life is limited, of course, and in our family, we were given the idealist's habit of running the race, even if we don't always get the prize.

"Whether rabbit or turtle, whether lucky or not, we were expected to be at the starting line when the pistol went off, and to do battle for our hopes each and every day. As crowded as that house was at the old Ruckert Mansion sometimes–my home today–we oftentimes felt the magic of it, the love inside it; Christ was with us there. I think, looking back, that my mother and father taught us all how to live our dreams. To my late wife, a dream was something like the fuel that gets you through a long hard day. Cathy once said, 'To dream a perfect dream is the hope of all good sleep, but to live the dream, that is art, the art of living.' You know that they say that the first sight of love is the last of intelligence, and they also say that true love is the dreamer and the dream: nothing half so sweet; nothing half so bitter. For me, and I hope as well for Ingrid and Arthur, the dream and the love are one and the same thing; that they'll have both family and art, and both friendship and trust, inside their pact of love."

In the preceding months, I had read little. My obstetrician, Dr. Connie McCain, delivered over one hundred babies a year, but most of my practical advice I got from Ingrid. She was on call for me twenty-four hours a day –the next year would be her last year of medical school.

I gave birth to a seven pound baby boy, Jesse Jr., on November 7th at 4:20 p.m. 1998.

My labor lasted two hours, which for my age was exceptional. John was with me in the delivery room. At the onset of the worst pain, I became completely irrational and I bit his hand when I got the chance. I didn't have an epidural, and I didn't rip much below. I felt a little concern about John watching the baby being pushed out of me–it wasn't romantic, but in a way, it was. A delivery emergency occurred the room over from us, and Doctor McCain and her medical team were called away. John paced around the delivery table for forty-five minutes cuddling with the baby in his arms. It bonded them together forever. I slept on and off, sometimes holding the baby myself and crying. I was exhausted for eight days, but I breast-fed Jesse Jr. and began to recover rapidly.

I wanted to say two things about my experience. Perhaps I was lucky, but first, despite the pain, it overall felt darn great–I mean, physically, psychologically, and emotionally. I knew I would have another. The second thing was that my breasts swelled up so taut that I wept in pain, but the relief from Jesse Jr.'s suckling was so great, that several times, I had an orgasm.

As the weeks went by, I was on the phone every day with Diane, but had no desire to go back to work yet. I was totally focused on Jesse Jr. John could have been kidnapped and I wouldn't have paid the ransom if it had direly affected Jesse Jr.'s future. It was an incredibly focused time.

As the weeks passed, I began reading again, this time The Touchstone by Paul Horsfall, Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy, and Infants and Mothers by T. Berry Brazelton.

I think I can safely say that Christmas, 1998 was one of the best of my life.

Diane was holding up fine at B&R, and Jesse Jr. by then was almost sleeping through the night. He was a good baby, and John changed diapers, was never cross with me, and never demanded sex. I was exceedingly disinclined even though in March of that year, I began letting him have intercourse with me again, but it was out of obligation more than any sexual need that I had. If I wanted to cuddle, I had Jesse Jr.– but being a mom hadn't made me so brain-dead that the essence of Jessie Basle's former words didn't echo down to me from past remembrance. I could still hear her voice: "There are three rules to a successful life," she had said. "The first is manage your morals, the second, manage your career, and the third, manage your personal life."

In May, John and I left Jesse Jr. with Grandpa and Grandma, and traveled to the Bahamas for three days. I used all of my self-control to keep focused on John, and with incredible self-restraint, I didn't phone home once. It was hard, but one of the smartest things I ever did. John became front and center again, and we rediscovered our equilibrium as husband and wife. This was where faith came into play: it gave him patience with me, just as Dad had with Mom.

In September 1999, Ingrid started her last year of medical school in the Twin Cities. She also announced that she was almost three months pregnant. This was following Mom's footsteps: Mom, too, had become pregnant in medical school.

I returned to work. We were doing great sales, and at The Jessie Basle Foundation for Women, we were busting at the seams. However, I was furious to see that little progress had been made on the building. I could see why Jessie was so hard on people. On October 6, 1999, I called an afternoon meeting of all the architects, managers, contractors, builders, foremen, and subcontract lead-men.

"Find a way to finish it before January 2000," I said when they were assembled, "or heads will roll. Ned Sauswiser's group and the whole outfit from Designed Building isn't present today. This morning we let them go. They've fleeced us for the last time. No more excuses. Any delays at all, your whole sector will be relieved. Are there any questions?"

Everyone was silent, which I took as a good sign. I picked up my notes, and Diane and I left.

Our profit that year was over seven hundred million dollars, and it has never been as high since.

Nearing November's end, I received confirmation from the FBI that, although there was no concrete evidence, they believed that both Kelsey Kratten and Ricicot Decoté were in America and living under assumed identities. This had been Pace's contention for over a year.

Christmas at the Ruckerts was wonderful, except that Ingrid was stressed out from her last year and we were nervous that she might lose her baby. Also, her year of internship, hard enough as it was, would be even more difficult with a newborn. However, she'd found a spot in St. Louis County Hospital, and received pretty much even rotation in emergency, obstetrics, and her own specialty, ENT, now referred to as otolaryngology. Moreover, like John, Arthur had agreed to stay at home to look after the baby during the time he was allowed for paternity leave with his father's company.

After that, they'd decide from there.

On Sunday, April 24, 1999, I held a baby shower for Ingrid. As with her bridal shower, nearly forty women came. In contrast, my baby shower with Ingrid and Grandma, held at the old Ruckert mansion, drew ten.

Ingrid was exceedingly well-liked in Vesey. All the women wanted her to open up a practice there. To my surprise–and this shows you how out of touch a business executive can get with her hometown background–most of the gifts were of the handmade sort: woolen blankets, quilts, jumpers, even ceramic dolls and wooden building blocks. Laura made her a crib mobile of wooden butterflies, which had a silent little motor that took two double AA batteries and played four nursery rhymes. Christine brought her a huge box of assorted baby needs, such as Vaseline, baby oil, baby powder, disposable diapers, safety pins, bottles, nipples, soothers–the whole gamut. Elena made her a bassinet with a home-sewn inlayed blanket. Mindy and Chantal had both sewn three newborn outfits. I bought her a stroller, a crib, and a car seat.

Ingrid and Arthur's baby came on May 14, 1999: a beautiful boy, Gerald Junior, weighing seven pounds, eight ounces.

In July, in Minneapolis-St. Paul, we accompanied Ingrid to her graduation. John and I held a party that Sunday afternoon at our house in Vesey; over eighty-five people attended. All that was left for Ingrid were the medical license exams.

The AMA reaffirmed its support for foundations like The Jessie Basle Foundation for Women, ones that followed AMA guidelines on issues such as domestic violence, child abuse, elder abuse, and sexual assault.

John had recently given me The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan and Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany to read.

With Jesse Jr. in my life, I often traveled back and forth from Duluth, and that suffered was my reading time. I didn't finish those books until summer was over. John was anxious to return to teaching and I often felt guilty, all the more so in September. It was when traditionally he returned to work–and also, I realized I was pregnant again. However, when I told John, he smiled and hugged me, and otherwise seemed exceedingly happy.

This time I packed on the weight, and by Christmas, I was showing all over. I consulted Dr. McCain often about my rapid weight gain and she was concerned too, but suggested it was a problem I could face after the birth. I had no idea just what kind of problem it would be to deal with, nor how depressed it would make me.

April 11th, 11:21 a.m., 1999, I gave birth to little Catherine. I'd gained forty pounds, and little Catherine weighed just under seven of those.

A week after delivery, safe in my home with just the baby while John was running an errand, I stripped naked and looked in the full-length mirror of our bedroom. The weight had gone to my belly and hips. I knew I was in for months, if not years, of work to get my old body back.

I cried until I heard John returning, and then hopped into the shower. I returned to boxercising and a swimming regimen immediately, but I didn't let John see me naked until October. That month, although I still wasn't one hundred percent, I was within five pounds above my prenatal weight. With my enlarged breasts and slightly larger hips, my curves were more defined. I asked Diane what she thought.

"You're sexier and prettier than you've ever been," she said. I hoped John felt the same. That Halloween, I dressed up as a cat in a skin-tight outfit, and had Victoria look after Jesse Jr. and little Catherine. I made John take me out trick-or-treating. He was a good sport and dressed as Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, the famous Emily Brontë novel, but of course everyone thought he was pretending to be a tramp.

When we arrived home, I pulled him into the bedroom and lit some candles. I stripped in the muted light, and he stripped too. He was pretty excited, and we made love standing up. It was like doing it all again for the first time.

"I wanted to wait until I was back in shape," I whispered in his ears hours later, realizing he was pretty pleased with the results of my work, and also much relieved of his sexual yearning.

He nodded and cuddled up. "I knew that's what you were up to," he whispered back.

"Thanks for waiting."

"It was worth it, babe. You're more beautiful than any woman I could imagine."

Christmas at the Ruckerts that year, 1999, was the best one. Grandma and Grandpa were healthy. Dad was seeing a woman, Molly, who for the first time in years was within a decade of his age, and who we all liked. The babies were doing well, B&R had a reasonable year, and most importantly for me, there had been no sightings of either Kelsey or Ricicot.

That time, there were twenty-eight of us.

Ingrid and I had decided that before supper, we'd take everyone to a small piano room, which in turn was adjoined to the living-dining room, for pictures and a performance of "Sleeping Meadows," "Silent Night," and "Edelweiss." We'd only practiced a few times lately, but we had done the three pieces nearly our whole lives.

When we were done, we received a standing ovation–but as Dad pointed out, there are no chairs in the piano room. That Christmas, Ingrid gave me five books by Mary Higgins Clark including When my Pretty One Sleeps. The book John gave me was Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, and Dad gave me Natalie Angier's Woman: An Intimate Geography. That is why he was one of the best dads on the planet.

In January 2000, I received an anonymous machine-printed letter at the Basle Building. I read it with a gnawing feeling of horror. Then I found Diane alone and read it aloud to her: "'In April 1999, Janus Eliot went missing near Lake Chelan, south of Rockport, not far from the turnoff at Highway 5. She was a street-person living in downtown Seattle, Washington. On May 17, 1999, Marg Furtate went missing while hitchhiking on Highway 97 just outside Brewster. She also was a street-person who lived in downtown Seattle. On June 8, Cherry Darnnle went missing near Waterville on Highway 2. Her abandoned car was found hidden on a side road in a forested area. She lived just outside Seattle in Arlington. On August 27, Darren Hacket, a fifteen-year-old boy, disappeared while hitchhiking on Highway 20 near Winthrop. He was a run-away who lived in downtown Seattle. On September 12, a teenage street girl, Nelly Foley, disappeared after last being seen at a Shell Station in the town of Monroe. These missing persons are all teens, all white, and all thin, fitting the profile of the Black Forest River Reserve serial killer.'"

"Who would send this to you?" Diane asked with a voice as bleak as I felt.

We retrieved a United States roadmap and studied the Seattle area in Washington State.

"It's about Ricicot Decoté," I said. "Someone thinks he has something to do with these missing kids."

Diane shook her head. "Considerably more than that."

Before I could ask her what she meant, she phoned Pace. He arrived at the Basle Building within the hour.

He read it several times before he commented.

"Let's discuss a few things," he said, looking rather direly at me. "This is addressed to you, but not in a personal way. I think that this letter was meant to get into my hands, or the hands of somebody like me. If it's Ricicot Decotè to whom the letter is referring, and I'm sure that it is, then the Feds would be able to track him down quickly. He'll have other identification, I mean aliases, and will have changed his appearance and stuff, but his M.O. will be the same. I'll bet he's still purchasing a whack of those Port Walton Beach Country Punch miniature liquor bottles, and he will have a red truck of some sort, and the screaming, the torture, and the blood, they'll be the same. Let me suggest something that might shock you. I think it's definitely Ricicot Decoté, and I also think that Kelsey Kratten wrote this letter."

I sat down, dismayed, and looked at Diane. "You've got to be wrong," I whispered, more to myself than them.

But Diane shook her head. "That's what I thought of at first, too."

"It's just a guess, Nat," Pace said, "but like your mom, I have a nose for these sorts of things. Here's what you have to consider. If the Feds move in on Ricicot, but he escapes, and it was public knowledge that you tipped them off, he might come after you. If they capture him, the cause which has kept Kelsey Kratten busy for so long will be over, and Kelsey may start watching directly over you again. It's lose-lose.

"This is what I'll do. I'll contact the FBI, and say the letter was sent directly to my office, but that I've lost the envelope."

"Pace, you'll get yourself into trouble," I said.

"Don't you worry about me," he said. "I've done all right by you, haven't I?"

We agreed to follow Pace's advice, and I told John and Dad.

Dad wrung his hands, but John's reaction was the opposite.

"When you're a good person like yourself," he said, scratching his chin, "and a great individual, a beautiful woman, then there's always suffering. It's the way it's divided up. I don't mean to be fatalistic. We have to fight these guys, and be careful at the same time–but I know in my heart, we haven't seen the last of them."

I hated his answer, and would have said so, but I'd felt the same way–not about my goodness or greatness; I was nothing compared to Jessie. I concurred, unfortunately, that it wasn't over.

Chapter Fourteen

In February, 2000, John and I packed up Jesse Jr., now two years, three months old, and little Catherine, now a year, ten months old, and traveled to the Bahamas for eight days. We stayed at the Radisson Cable in Nassau, right on the beach. I had taken a book Dad bought me for Christmas, James Randi's The Mask of Nostradamus, and one I'd borrowed from Ingrid, Mary Higgins Clark's Before I Say Good-bye. John had Ernest Hemingway's just-released posthumous work, True at First Light, and I read that as well.

However, the holiday was far too much work, and John and I were short with each other a couple of times.

In March, the FBI broke the case in Seattle. Diane and I heard the tale from Pace.

"Just like the letter hinted," Pace said, "and like I suggested, they found Ricicot by tracking him through his drinking habits. It was a female agent, Martha Wechsler from the Seattle office, who did the leg work. She visited Fort Walton Incorporated for a list of all their distributors, found the largest supplier for Washington State of those little bottles, found the biggest retailers, and visited them–in order, most to least–with a sketch of what Ricicot Decoté would look like with a beard, long hair, or shaved head. On the third try, at an ABC Liquor Outlet in Winthrop, the owner at once identified Ricicot Decoté. He even knew where Ricicot lived and worked in Omak. He drove a red Ford pick-up."

"How can he be working and have a place to stay?" Diane complained. "How can anybody so horrible just fit into a neighborhood with such ease?"

"I'll explain some of it to you," Pace said, "and you are not going to like it. Omak is well north of Seattle, but close to the forested area of the Okanagan National Forest. When they went to arrest him, he was waiting for them. He had a monitoring camera down the road from his property this time. A chase followed, but he drove his truck straight to his burial gravesite and escaped into the forest on foot.

"He has a brush-cut now with light brown, almost orange hair. He has pierced his right ear and wears a diamond stud. He's tanned too, and wears blue tinted contacts. His body's not sloppy anymore. In the Dodge Correctional Institute, he must have pumped some iron. He's developed a flat stomach, defined biceps, and upper body definition. It hides his age. He also wears urbane casuals from the Gap and places like that. Martha Wechsler said that everyone whom she talked with described him as 'quiet,' 'nice,' 'friendly,' 'well-mannered,' etcetera.

"Spooky, isn't it? There's more: Remember the papers mentioned that according to an inmate at the Dodge Correctional Institute, Ricicot has a stash somewhere in Waupaca County? Well, they found a place in Omak. As you crawl down into it–it's an underground cavity from an old riverbed–there's a sign that reads 'Bunker Two.' They found hundreds of bottles of Walton Fruit Punch, dozens of bottles of sunless sun tanning lotion, and hair dye. A cot, blankets, food, even a fridge, cash exceeding ten thousand dollars, and, yes, large glass jars holding fingers, toes, penises, and nipples from his latest teenage victims. floating in formaldehyde. There's fishing gear as well. He used it to fish in a stream near the bunker, in the open with just his boxer shorts on. That's how they found his stash. A hiker noticed him and thought it was weird that some guy was fishing in boxer shorts. After Ricicot's escape hit the news, the hiker phoned in. However, Ricicot didn't go to Bunker Two. The cash there proves that. They also found a cache of narcotics in that location, mostly meprobamate and diazepam for severe anxiety. Martha Wechsler believes he somehow fooled the staff at the Dodge Correctional Institute and got access to their pharmacy stores, or maybe he traded sex for them with one of the staff. There's an ongoing investigation. He also had the antidepressant drug imipramine. He had a Polaroid, a precision cutter, and a lamination pad, drivers' licenses, credit cards, and even two passports."

I rose in shock and began to pace the office. It wasn't real: it was a movie where the serial killer had both supernatural talent and demonic evil.

Pace looked over at me. "Sorry. I can see that this is scary, but the thing is, everyone investigating this, including me, thinks he's heading this way to get to Bunker One in Waupaca. He might be already there. If it's like Bunker Two, he could hide there for some time–and remember, he knows that area much better. He lived there basically his whole life.

"Here are several composites of Ricicot, one with a goatee, one with a shaved head, and one with a wig."

I studied them.

"Do you believe in God, Pace?" I asked at length.

He shrugged. "Yeah, there's something out there. Maybe we don't know what it is, though. Whatever gets people through their lives–faith is good to have."

"How can there be both God and Ricicot Decoté?"

"I see what you mean. How can it all be random though? Do you see what I'm getting at?"

I nodded. "I guess I'd better start carrying a gun in my purse."

"I can see how you feel," Pace said, "but none of this answers the original question: who's snooping on who? The original letter led directly to Ricicot Decoté, and quickly too. That's no accident. While I may not know for sure if there's a God helping us along, one of his alleged disciples is."

Despite my anxiety, I laughed.

"Which one is worse? They're both murderers."

"Kelsey Kratten is by far more of a danger to you," Pace said. "Ricicot's insanity is essentially cowardly: he satiates himself like an ogre. He knows his appetite is something to hide. Kelsey's insanity is fundamentally aggressive, like a revolutionary's: he thinks it's something to self-praise.

"I want to shadow you for a few weeks. I know it's an invasion of your privacy, but if you'd give me access here, and at the condo and your Vesey home, for two weeks, I can cover more of your security weaknesses."

"What's the use? If they're going to get me, they're going to get me."

"You know that's just not true," Diane piped in.

I sighed. "I'll talk to John and Dad." I looked at Diane. "I gather it's okay with you?"

She nodded. "Maybe we should have considered Brack's offer more carefully."

I was sure that I was pouting, and rubbed my face to hide it. "I'm not ruining my life by getting involved with private justice. Mom and Jessie would be ashamed of us."

When I returned to my office, I phoned Dad and John to tell them. Then I phoned my lawyer, and made an appointment for the next day. I'd decided it had come time to write my last will.

I kept that appointment, and made out a legal will. I left the business to a trust to be run by Diane and John when I died. It was to be given to Jesse Jr. or little Catherine when they finished business school, or to be sold when they reached thirty years of age if they weren't inclined toward business.

I left my other holdings in trust with John. I left my things at the condo to Diane. That would be worth tens of millions of dollars with the paintings. I left the house in Vesey and all my cash and stocks to John. That would be worth millions of dollars. Jessie had told me to always be prepared for a garage sale. She bought Gurucet, intact with all of its scientists and administrators, by covering its debt in cash–which was under twenty-five million dollars–and she did it on the very same day that she heard rumors of its parent company's impending doom. In effect, that meant she bought it for almost nothing. Gurucet had been responsible for our most reliable abortifacients, that is the morning-after pill, and birth control pills, including the low estrogen birth-control pill and one of our best automated blood analyzers for blood tests, cell counts, and detecting endocrine cells and secretions, as well as the fast, dependable, disposable home pregnancy kit. Our most powerful software technologies for the machinery came from the States, but on the medicine and chemical side, Gurucet received much of the credit. All other personal valuables were to go to Dad. I left ten million dollars in government bonds to The Jessie Basle Foundation for Women, and approximately fifty million dollars in American real estate to a Gurucet Research Trust that Jessie had developed but never actuated.

In the middle of May, 2000, Diane and I traveled to Paris for several days to meet with Nazer and Ruth. We didn't go to the Gurucet Castle in Val-D'Oise; we stayed in the heart of Paris at a new Marriott on Avenue des Champs Elysees, the only hotel on that famous street. It was expensive, at nearly two thousand dollars for three nights, but I wanted to see some of the sights with Diane, and we didn't have that much time.

As it turned out, we had only three hours for The Musée du Louvre, and a bit of an afternoon on the last day for chasing the shadows of great, dead artists along Butte Montmatre. We were with Ruth and Nazer that day, and ended in the small patio cafés close to Moulin Rouge, which led to the famous café walkways.

The busy sunny morning held a breeze from the direction of the Seine. We saw a young, nearly naked teenage juggler, his skin painted in a rainbow of colors and covered only in a brief tight spandex thong. He moved down the street with a group of children in tow. It was part sexual, part ridiculous, and part fantasy, but very Parisian.

On that visit, I found the service in downtown Paris absurd, and almost malicious. It had always bordered on rude, and I'd heard complaints from Ingrid, her university friends, my employees, and even acquaintances, about this problem in Paris. But to look out at the streets where artists such as Auguste Renoir, John Paul Sartre, Victor Hugo, Édouard Manet, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Pablo Picasso, Paul Cèzanne, Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet, and so many others roamed from café to café was irresistible. I loved this area better than anything else about Paris, minus The Musée du Louvre.

The streets of interlocked brick or cobblestone were populated with trees and potted bushes. Many cafés were crowned by boxes of colorful flowers. That morning, besides the streams of tourists, it continued to be quiet, with no direct traffic noise. Music floated in the air with the distant sounds of car horns. If I glanced over my shoulders, I could see the dome of the Basilica Sacré Coeur.

A massive contradiction existed in Paris: to live with this history, to sell the image so skillfully to the world, and then when tourists arrived, to be of such poor manners–it defied logic.

"Poor manners are the social skills of savages, ideologues, and chauvinists," as Cathy said. At the time, unfortunately, she had meant this in regards to Jessie.

Despite this, I still liked Paris, and Europe in general. Out of America, I felt safer–less threatened. Everywhere I traveled stateside, I sensed the shadow of Kelsey Kratten, even if he wasn't really following me. He'd spooked me for good. I knew that if he wasn't caught soon, he would get me.

Ruth, Nazer, Diane, and I chose an outside café, Del Amandier near Bd. Barbés, and sat in silence for some moments.

"Are you okay?" Ruth asked in a soft voice at length.

"My mind wandered off," I said.

Ruth had kept her svelte figure, but her blonde hair was shorter now. She always seemed to me to be tanned, always in sunglasses, and ready for the world with an outward stern expression, but one which broke into a smile given the slightest chance. She wore an elegant summer dress, and I told her so. Jessie had told me once that Nazer and Ruth Brown had two of the best trademarks of any executives in the world. Back then, I didn't have much to compare them to, but now I did. It was amazing how many executives became self-destructive after they found success. But these two had never made that mistake: they came from humble beginnings at B&R, and had remained humble their whole lives.

"It isn't too much?" she asked with a smile.

"You strolled through the streets as though you owned Paris," Diane said to Ruth, backing me up as she always did.

We were interrupted by a waitress, who I'd spotted some time ago out of the corner of my eye. I could see that her large breasts and her nipples were not covered by any undergarment, even though she wore a tight-fitting white t-shirt. I thought it was odd for an East Indian woman.

The shirt had one word printed, in black, across the front, inside a circle with a slash through it: Taliban.

"What a beautiful spring day," Nazer said. "Let's have some champagne with our lunch." "English?" he asked the waitress, getting her attention. She shook her head. "Français?" She nodded, but waved her hand to indicate she would be challenged with French as well.

"Ask her about her t-shirt," I said to Nazer. "They're really not that busy right now."

For a few minutes, Nazer and the waitress communicated.

"She's from Peshāwar in Northern Pakistan," he said at length. "It's near Khyber Pass, a border-crossing or something between her country and Afghanistan. She says that all-male Taliban in Afghanistan and their rulers impose a strict social order, based on some weird interpretation of Islam. Most of the restrictions are aimed against women, whom they hate. Girls are forbidden to even attend school to learn how to read and write, and women are forced to be completely subservient."

I'd heard of the Taliban, so this didn't surprise me. It was her form of protest that interested me: it was particularly Western. Nazer spoke in French to clarify something with her, then continued.

"Women have to wear what's called a 'burqa' out of doors," he said. "It's a head-to-toe potato bag with holes." We laughed. "She says that many women, even in Pakistan, are killed by Muslim men for not obeying them."

"Ask her what her education is."

Nazer and the waitress again spoke for a moment. "She says she completed four years in general arts from the University of Karāchi," Nazer said.

"Nazer, do you think you could find her something?"

"You mean employment?" I nodded. "Certainly."

Nazer spoke with her and wrote down her name and cell number, then gave her his business card. After this, we ordered." She was more than attentive, and made eye contact with all of us.

"How is The Jessie Basle Foundation for Women coming along?" Ruth asked after the waitress left.

"After all the delays," I said, "I felt rather battered. As you know too well, it was one of Jessie's unfulfilled dreams."

For several seconds, I rummaged through my purse, and passed a photograph to her.

"Here's a recent picture of it. A while back, I think in 1997, I had all the parties involved with it together at a conference. By that point I'd had enough, so I laid it on the line. After that, it was finished on time. The two administrators, Alison Johnson and Lorrain St. James–you met them both last New Years–are doing a stand up job. It's just that Lorrain is getting on; she'll retire in a couple of years. I wanted to pick a younger person, but I just couldn't turn her down."

"Maybe she'll stay on part-time," Diane said. "I'm thinking she might."

"What were your impressions of the last year?" Nazer asked.

"Terrific," I said, "It saved us. We're expecting a turndown stateside, though."

"We are in full production now," Nazer said. "It's Jessie's revenge, nothing more, nothing less. Someday, the abortion pill will be sold over the counter everywhere. How are John and the children?"

"John manages with Jesse Jr. and Catherine when I'm away, and the Ruckerts have been wonderful, but they're up in years now. Victoria's okay, but Gerald has been diagnosed with prostate cancer."

"Sorry to hear it, but I think treatment now gets a seventy percent success rate. How's Ingrid? It's been so long since I've seen her."

"Ingrid and Arthur spend a lot of time with us. They're our best friends. Gerry's growing up with Jesse Jr. and little Catherine, and that's good. They may not have another child."

"What about Kelsey Kratten and Ricicot Decoté?" Nazer asked.

"To think they let Ricicot just walk away," Ruth said.

"Could we have some more Pol Roger?" I asked the waitress. A patch of alto cumulus clouds were piled up high in the sky, blocking out the sun, and for a moment, a wind rose. We raised our glasses.

"There's the sun again," Diane returned at length. "I sure wish Jessie had lived to see this. She would be giving everything praises."

"Reverend Bowers went on American television last week," I said. "He's doing the talk circuit for his new book, The Rights of the Unborn. He has softened his positions. He now says that the birth-control pill is acceptable and that the morning-after pill may be of some merit, or something like that. But he still maintains that the FDA will reverse its earlier decision on the abortion pill. They're living in a dream world."

"We were smart to have it subcontracted," Nazer said. "The number of threats against the manufacturers in North America is scary. I think I will flip it one more time yet this year. Their violence is exceeded only by their determination."

"Bowers also mentioned Jessie in his book," I continued. "He stated that extremist rhetoric sometimes can lead to violence, and cited Kelsey Kratten as an example."

"I'd take that as an apology," Ruth said.

"It's the best I'll ever get from him," I said, "but maybe he was referring to Jessie when he used the expression 'extremist rhetoric.'"

We spent the afternoon in the sun, drinking champagne.

That same evening, Diane and I embarked on an American Airliner to John F. Kennedy International with a connection to Duluth. We took a taxi to the condo, where after a rigorous swim, and with just enough jet-lag to stop me from going out, I read a bit of Menace from Earth: A History of Absolutism and its Ties to Terrorism and went to bed. I slept soundly the whole night.

When I awoke, I showered and readied for another day at the office. I phoned John on the cell to say hello and talked to Jesse Jr. and little Catherine, promising to be home that afternoon.

When it was clear to us that the American side of the balance sheet was going to be a disaster, we decided to throw a company wide party in Chicago to head off any deflation in morale or rumors of layoffs, which we had no intention of doing. On Saturday, June 24, 2000, we rented a party room at the Hilton Hotel downtown and flew everybody in from all over the country, including some of our important longtime supporters and customers.

John joined me, and I invited Ingrid and Arthur, but they ended up with the kids in Vesey. Grandpa wasn't doing well and had recently been in for stress tests on his heart, fearing that he had already had a minor stroke. As far as I was concerned, this had been a reaction to the operation for prostrate cancer, which was severe in his case.

"He's just getting old," Dad said, "but it's still hard."

I wore a silky tight red dress with a low-cut neckline and open shoulders. I had on a teardrop pearl necklace and matching earrings. It was totally inappropriate for a company CEO, especially since I had on a thong and wore no bra. As though to emphasize my attire, Diane wore a two-piece flat-green business suit, something that Jessie would have worn. Also, I wore my hair highlighted and thrown straight back. It fell all the way down my back, braided with thin, curly red ribbons.

My face had become angular like Jessie's and Diane's from strenuous boxercising, twenty-five laps a day in the pool in Duluth, and constant dieting. I knew I looked good, but my youthful, soft features were gone. John couldn't keep his hands off me. He was my barometer. Really, we were a couple of fools that night, kissing and laughing.

When I said a party, I meant a band and bar with food and dance. Many of our young employees came to me, bringing me drinks and asking me questions, or introducing their unemployed friends with degrees in this or that.

Desrai Collie was a chartered accountant with us in Duluth. She was quiet as a mouse, and a plain girl; I'd never seen her in a dress and or makeup, and tonight was no exception. She wore slacks and a blouse. Jessie had hired her a decade ago fresh out of college, and she had been an excellent, steady, employee through the years, like all of Jessie's hires. She was a square girl and prone to being overweight. Diane had told me that she was a lesbian and had a cynical stinging wit, but otherwise she lived a quiet life and owned an expensive house in West Duluth. Desrai came over–I gathered she had a few drinks–and we hugged. She asked me how B&R was doing, and called me by my first name.

"Rough year," I said, "but no business talk tonight. Do you still have your place in Duluth?"

She nodded. "The last time that we spoke was in Cancun at the Intercontinental in 1996. I won the female golfing contest, and we had a few drinks together."

"I remember that," I said. "It was a great holiday. I think I only golfed once, though."

"You were always by the pool tanning and reading. At the time, you had Colin Wilson's Atlantis to the Sphinx. We all came home and bought it. What do you think of the New Age Movement?"

Several other employees, all female, and I presumed on friendly terms with each other, came within earshot. I greeted them each with an embrace.

One of them, Kimberly, a tall, pretty thirty year old, was dressed completely in black and whispered that I looked beautiful. Diane had told me once that there was a group inside the company, led by Kimberly, that had followed Jessie's pronouncements like they were ex cathedra, traveled to her public appearances, read the books she was reading, and listened to the music she liked.

I hadn't thought it would be applied to me. This put me on my guard.

"Jessie used to say that William James had a screw lose," I said in response to her question on New Age, using Jessie's exact words and knowing that James was the only serious philosopher that the New Age gurus could embrace as their own, "and that belief in Pragmatism would lead to belief in the occult. Like her, I'm disinclined to believe in any supernatural order. Little real proof of it exists; it's testimonial, mostly. I read A Separate Reality and Journey to Ixtlan by Carlos Castaneda when I was younger, and later, Celestine Prophecies by James Redfields.

"I think their unconscionable New Age dribble does a heck of a lot of damage to those seeking reasonable answers to some exceedingly difficult questions. Redfields' book is much worse than Castaneda's. They're not even real novels. At least with Watership Down or War and Peace, the philosophy is interwoven and dependent on the story, and in no way an excuse for it.

"When Don't Fall Off the Mountain by Shirley MacLaine came out, Jessie called it ridiculous. She said that MacLaine was the result of a wealthy artsy-fartsy upbringing without any middle-class aspiration or common sense, and that the idea of reincarnation for human beings was humiliating. According to Jessie, this was what got the whole ball rolling that time around. Jessie also said at one point that Isis Unveiled by H.P. Blavatsky, which is well over a century old now, and which I've also read, was no more and no less than a vicious, unprincipled Platonic attack on Aristotelian ideas, and that Theosophic Religion was the spookiest of the lot. I agree.

"However, about Colin Wilson, he is a genius. His book, The Outsider, is brilliant, and not to be confused with Albert Camus' The Outsider, which is also brilliant. I sincerely hope Wilson has nothing to do with the New Age Movement and the occult. I interpreted Atlantis to the Sphinx as an overview of historical anomalies. I've read The Mind Parasites as well, but it wasn't nearly as good as The Outsider."

"You sound exactly like your grandmother," Kimberly said with a broad smile.

I believed that was the best compliment I had ever received. "The key into understanding Jessie Basle," I said, "was that for her, proof was the bottom line for belief, profit the bottom line for a company, and excellence the bottom line for an individual."

"Then fighting the ideas of god and the irrational with adroitness while making money would be an ultimate career choice for her," Kimberly said with a giggle.

I laughed, but I got a strange feeling that she was quoting Jessie from an earlier time.

"Clever," I said, "but strangely enough, I think that, in a certain way, that is what she achieved. She was an inspirational person. She held that achievement for human beings depended on the use of our minds, and that the only tools which the mind has to distinguish the true from the false are reason and logic."

I looked across the room at John. He was still engaged in a conversation with Emily and Diane, so I was completely free to continue without feeling guilty.

"Religionists from all over the world use science against itself, like Freud used reason against the mind. They foster a certain equivalence, such as that the irrational and the supernatural are reasonable explanations, but this is a total contradiction to what science demands. Few, if any, of these New Age Gurus are scientists, and none of them actually use scientific tools. They use the window dressing of reason and logic. They are tantamount to Harry Houdini, who used the facade of conjuring magic as he developed his discipline of the sleight of hand–only he was honest about it, and unmasked many frauds who professed that their tricks were real magic.

"The New Age Gurus will be the first to tell you that Pat Robertson and Gerry Falwell can't stop storms with mass prayer, but they will sell you their own version of wacky magic. They're frauds, every one of them. I understand why belief in the supernatural has extended into this century, even with so much evidence that the idea of God can't be rationally defended: it's taught as a matter of routine in our schools, and public institutions profess it. Everywhere you go, everybody assumes there's a God, or at least a supernatural reality.

"It really isn't challenged much in America, no matter how much the religionists complain to the contrary. When I was young, Jessie gave me books like Hoaxes, The Encyclopedia of Delusions, The Case Against God, The Skeptic's Handbook, Atheism, and so forth, and also encouraged me to read Russell, Voltaire, Hume, Foucault, Blanshard, Hayek, Mises, Popper, Santayana, Szasz, and the other fine atheists–not Marx or Freud though; she considered them religionists, not skeptics at all. Since then, I've read God Is Not Great, The God Delusion, The Portable Atheist, and In Defense of Secular Humanism, and they're all pretty good explanations.

"That was another thing about Jessie Basle–maybe, politically, the most important: she didn't believe that capitalism was an 'ism' at all. She often said that one couldn't have an ideal of greed any more than one could have a society of selflessness. She used to say that capitalism was ultimately dependant on democracy, which allowed economic freedoms because freedom of speech, of conscience, of ideas, and so forth, were guaranteed. She thought that any democracy that allowed human rights abuses to promote corporate capitalism was a shallow reflection of a truly great nation...She was, of course, talking about our nation, but I never heard her voice this concern publicly. I think that she thought she already had too many enemies, and that she would be marginalized by them like some American leftists had been. Noam Chomsky comes to mind. She considered being intellectually bulldozed to be one of the great errors you could commit. According to Jessie, you fought to win, and you should never let your enemies amass on your borders in such great numbers that they could overrun you in a single battle."

After a few other such remarks, I excused myself and made the rounds to say goodnight, then John and I went to our room and made love. Afterwards, when we were snuggling under the covers, I felt guilty about my harsh words about people who believe in God. I felt guilt, too, for being proud that I sounded like Jessie in public. I promised myself never to do it again. It had been egotistical, and, in a way, completely unlike Jessie. She never spoke to show off. I was glad that no one had taken offense, or at least I hoped they hadn't.

On the Independence Day long weekend, Dad proposed to Molly and they set a date for May, 2001.

On November 7th, Jesse Jr. turned three years old. John and I threw a party for him, and had the whole family attend.

Grandpa declared December 25th 2000 a special event day, and invited Christians from all over America. I think he had a feeling he was on his last Christmas.

Grandma published an article in War Cry, the official organ of the Salvation Army, about faith, life, working, and living through Christ via the Sally Anne. It was from a speech she had delivered on Salvation Army's one hundred and twentieth anniversary at the American Headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia, entitled "More Soup, Soap and Salvation, But with a Twist." Grandpa asked her to speak to the gathering in the Ruckert house that Christmas, and she delivered her speech again.

Not including the family, there was fifty people present, so about eighty in all. Kate was doing buffet, and had cooked five large turkeys.

Grandma had her hair done up in a ball and wore the uniform and hat. Her appearance stressed her age and took the humor out of her eyes. Still, she looked serious and dignified when she stood on the spiral staircase in the hall and faced the large living-dining room crowd. Her face had become a bit puffy and formless with age; it was not stern at all, but kind, and had a lot of character. Her soft voice carried easily into the crowd with the use of a microphone.

"We see God creating the world in a majestic display of power and purpose, culminating with a man and a woman. Long before sin, there was heaven. Long before redemption, there was purity. Humans were created by God to be free. From the Garden of Eden where Satan first showed himself up into the 20th Century, where he now hides behind modern ideology and idolatry, we have struggled with war, famine, pain, good, and evil, but always there is a reason to be hopeful, a promise that we are all coming together as one in Christ, and that we are all children of God.

"Let me tell you the good news. God demands only one tenet be followed; from it all others flow. Let me explain his one belief. Immanuel Kant, the famed German Christian philosopher, had an axiom,: Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. I have found one such maxim running through the whole of humankind's history, from the Jewish Testament, the New Testament, the Koran, from the Hindu culture, to the Buddhists, to the ancient Greeks, to the intellectuals of industrial capitalism and democracy and even their enemies, and beyond.

"Let me give you some quotes. First, from the Old Testament: 'What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow men.' Aristotle put it another way: 'We should behave to friends as we would wish friends to behave to us.' Confucius said, 'What you do not want done to yourself, do not unto others.' Jesus said, 'Therefore all things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do even so to them.' In the Koran: 'No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.' In Sanskrit: 'Do nothing to others which would cause you pain if done to you.' From the Buddha: 'Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.' From Lao Tzu, the founder of Taoism–I have to thank my granddaughter, Ingrid, for this one: 'Regard your brother's gain as your gain, his loss as your loss.' The philosopher Spinoza maintained–I have to thank my other granddaughter Natalie for this one: 'Men who are governed by reason, desire for themselves nothing which they do not also desire for the rest of mankind, and consequently, are just, faithful, and honorable in their conduct.'

"I call it 'moral reciprocity,' and it is simply this: 'Love others as you would have them love you.' Religions around the world must come together on this one single point, and societies, and, really, all of us. It's Christ's point, but it comes from great thinkers from Hesiod to Bertrand Russell as well. All Christians must practice it. That's our law, but now, spread the word–it's the law of all people and whomever desires to be good."

In January 2001, B&R sold tracts of land in downtown Duluth to stay above the one hundred million mark in net. Simple greed prevented us from selling our speculative and capital venture stocks in the NASDAQ, even though there were plenty of public warnings that it was far overheated.

By March, things were looking better and sales were back to normal.

In May 2001, Grandpa wasn't well enough to walk Dad down the aisle, but did attend Molly and Christian's wedding in a wheel chair. The wedding was an almost extravagant affair, and nearly everyone in Vesey was invited.

Molly wore one of the most elaborate wedding dresses I'd ever seen, with layers of lacy veil down over her face and a train that flowed behind her for ten feet. The flowers were an event in themselves, worth thousands of dollars. Diane said it was crazy.

This is some of what Molly said of my dad while taking her vows: "I've dreamt of the man I was going to marry, and this man was everything I ever wanted: kind, caring, considerate, understanding and patient, but most of all, loving...an ideal man. I dreamed of someone who would be there for me through the hard times, the losses, or whenever I was down. He would bring me happiness, laughter, excitement, and adventure. Now there's a face to the man...my ideal man. One thing I'm grateful for is that Christian has taught me so much: he's taught me love and responsibility, how to keep a good thing going, taught me to give and take, and how to have an ongoing, friendly relationship with Jesus Christ. Christian, you have given me your life and your knowledge. With communication, we'll work through any problems that arise. I love you and take you to be my husband. Before God and society, I want to commit myself to you freely and without reservations. I want to believe in you, and your spiritual aspirations, which are also mine, to be near you in times alike of joy and sorrow."

"I would like to thank Molly for marrying me," Dad responded. "I'm truly honored. I admire this young woman more than words can express. Most of you know her as a nice person, a good contact in business, and a reliable friend, but I have seen a truly worthy and wonderful woman whom I love dearly. After Cathy died, I underwent a great struggle. My goal was no less than to keep my faith in God, surmount my loss, change my background, dismantle whatever I regarded as inferior traits.

"With a sheer act of faith in the Lord, I pulled my head up to look at the stars again, and found Molly looking back at me. My mom and dad love her, as do my two daughters. I believe Cathy would too. I have poured my energy into trying to understand this bizarre culture of ours. Molly showed me how it was revealed through God's merciful plan. I stand before you capable of taking the solemn vow of love again. I prayed for a little fortune to build a new foundation, and everyone seems to agree, I got positively lucky when I met Molly."

Chapter Fifteen

In June 2001, I saw Desrai Collie again, but this time she had booked an appointment to see me. She wore a plaid shirt and brown corduroy pants. She wore no jewelry, no makeup, no glasses, no watch, nor anything else you might be able to use to read into the meaning of her life or guess what made her tick.

"I have some information that I think B&R should have,' she said after we sat. "Certain American corporations have been wildly fudging their books and using creative accountancy to drive up stock options. It's a widespread practice, and the Department of Justice is only now turning up the heat. Everything is going to boil over. I have a friend who works at Securities and Exchange Commission. She says to stay clear of any company that has accountants, bankers, and investors playing both sides of the fence, like Merrill Lynch and Arthur Anderson do. Also, stay away from companies who do in-house accounting, those that aren't owner-controlled, or those that have an incestuous board of directors."

I laughed. "What's that? It sounds like us."

"A BOD fattened up with company executives."

That was one sin that B&R hadn't committed. Only Diane and I were on the board–everyone else was from the outside: we had a former state representative, the former Head Administrator of The Minneapolis General Hospital, the former owner of the largest dermatology clinic in Duluth, the former mayor of Duluth, and the former CEO of Coffin Clothes, the main supplier for funeral home supplies in the Northwest. All were women, and all had unvarnished trademarks.

"Especially stay away from companies who have a combination of these things," Desrai continued. "Does B&R own any Enron, Telus, World.Com, Nortel, Celestica, Microsoft, Global-Crossing, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Imclone, Qualcomm, or other such stocks?"

I nodded. "Your friend at the Fed is pessimistic?"

"She's older, you see. She's been around. This happened before in the fifties with the newly emerging oil industry: too much hype, not enough pipe. I have known her for some time. Now she says that the so-called 'e-revolution' has been 'too much yearning and not enough earning.' She knows how I feel about B&R. She says the economy is not just heading for a downturn, but a full-fledged recession that will plunge into a ten-year-deep downward cycle unless the government spends its way out á la John Maynard Keynes. With Bush and company, that's not going to happen. Besides, Greenspan is ideologically indisposed toward government expansion, even in a crisis."

"B&R is having a bad summer, but we are still solid. There's little debt."

"My friend says there's absolute universal belief at the SEC that the NASDAQ is in no way near rock bottom."

I frowned. This advice was as great a gift as possible, but we would lose millions selling now–still, of course, that was not as much as we could potentially lose. I phoned Diane and asked her to join us.

I had Desrai repeat her story, the significance of which hit me hard the second time around. It was difficult to put a smile on my face for this dedicated and concerned employee, but I did. We thanked her and then did the approximate, quick math. It was going to be over nine million dollars in loss from our book value.

"Is there anything else we can do?" I asked. "She's given us an out, and we can't wait for ten years to recover. Can we?"

Diane shrugged. "It isn't personal wealth, and we aren't exactly a public company. Can't the Foundation take some of the hit?"

"We didn't write it up that way. They aren't allowed to take debt."

"Let's unload them then. That's what Jessie would do."

"She wouldn't have invested in the first place."

Diane shrugged. "She bought Ruckerts for personal reasons, and that cost a fortune."

"Really?"

"You bet, bub, more of a loss than this."

"I'm going home to Vesey. I can't afford to get depressed. What should we give Desrai Collie?"

"A face lift."

I laughed. "That's mean."

"I learned it from Jessie. Desrai would notice a raise of, let's say, two dollars an hour–that's eighty a week, over 4K a year."

I nodded. "You don't mind if I go?"

"Go by all means. I'm almost done anyway."

When I got home, John and the kids must have sensed something: they were absolutely adorable. I told John later what happened.

"It's only money," he said.

I didn't tell him that I hated that expression. It's never just money. It is people's livelihoods, from my secretary, to Desrai Collie, to the janitor, to the scientists.

That night I had a dream that B&R went bankrupt. Jessie kept appearing in and out of it, berating me, and Mom would appear and try to comfort me, but I would jump to my feet–only to find I was sinking in warm muck. I woke up unrested and chilled to the bone. Two books by Judy Blume sat on my nightstand. My bedroom was neat and tidy, as was the whole house. John was extremely orderly, even with two kids. For the first time as President of B&R, I phoned in sick.

"I think I'm dying," I said to Diane.

"A loss of eight million, two hundred thousand, sixty-three dollars and fifteen cents," she said, "will do that to you."

I sighed. We'd sold our tech stocks. I hung up the phone and cried.

That July, it looked like–for the first time in history–B&R would show a loss.

I was getting exceedingly anxious, but that all changed after the attack in September 2001 on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.

No matter what they said in the mass media, the Taliban sponsored Osama bin Laden, not the other way around. At the very least, it was a symbiotic relationship. Osama bin Laden was in a commercial enterprise first; he was a Yemeni raised by a wealthy business family in Saudi Arabia–a nation, if there ever was one, totally corrupted by the US. The CIA trained him to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan and left him and the Mujahedeen to their own devices: an oil-millionaire with guns, an army, a bone to pick against America, and a violent ideology.

The result didn't need clarification, but we don't always learn from our mistakes.

Diane and I were in our Duluth offices when we were informed of the strike. I phoned John, Dad, and Ingrid, in that order, while watching the television in horror. However, when I said that everything changed, I meant economically.

By October and November, we received huge government orders for two of our patented anti-inflammatory drugs from our pharmacy division. We also received sizable orders for our JBC Mach 5 Automated Diagnostic Robotic Sampler and our individual disposal detection devices, The JBID, which we easily converted for small pox, anthrax, botulism, and other virulent infections, and which were mass-produced stateside.

They were cheap and effective devices, erring on the side of false detections and cost only a few dollars per single use. Our research facilities received grants to work on everything from an anthrax inoculation to a small pox vaccine. It was a windfall. This didn't affect our disastrous yearly fiscal report, but no severe austerity cuts were needed to fend off an immediate disaster. We had the lucrative contracts in hand; money was flowing in.

Pace visited me near the end of November. He was over fifty years old now, and was balding and graying fast.

"They've taken all the experienced agents off the Ricicot Decoté and Kelsey Kratten manhunts," he said. "This case stretches out over the decades. They're damned tired of my face, I'll tell you that. The war on terrorism gave them all the excuse they needed. I made my hopeless plea, and they had an expected response: 'What about all the 9/11 victims? We'll keep the files open.' I didn't say a thing further."

"Somebody should be watching you around the clock," Pace continued after a pause. "Can you afford it?" I nodded–he had always been plainspoken. "Brack Sanders is available," he continued. "Just a suggestion."

I thought I was frowning, but really, what could I say? I nodded again.

When he left, I ran and told Diane, but she already knew. I phoned John, Dad, and Ingrid, but they also knew. Apparently, I was the last to know; Pace had phoned everybody for advice. I phoned the FBI to complain about them removing the agents from the Kelsey Kratten and Ricicot Decotè case, but they put me on hold repeatedly.

The next day, I started going to the firing range again.

B&R was suddenly exceedingly busy, and the days flew by.

Come December, it looked like Desrai Collie's friend in the SEC had been incorrect. The recession, if it could be called that, had either not occurred, or despite Bush and Greenspan's efforts to the contrary, it had been ended, Keynesian-style, by the expense of the war on terrorism. Either way, it looked like it would be a good Christmas for B&R.

Grandpa died in his sleep at 4:00am on December 15. It turned out to be every bit as sad a Christmas as the years just after Mom or Jessie had passed on.

This is what Dad said in Grandpa's eulogy: "I woke last night, and my father whispered to me, 'Arise son, my spirit hails you from heaven and I come to tell you the most wonderful news.' I rose to hear his words. 'I've been to the golden valley, son,' he continued. 'I've met with the great saints; their hearts are filled with tenderness and love. Christ hasn't abandoned mankind. His heart, too, is filled with love for us. He will come soon. You tell Victoria, Ingrid, and Natalie that I will be waiting patiently for them–tell them Cathy is here with me. Tell my friends to keep the course, he is coming soon.' When my dad's spirit had flown, I knelt by my bed and cried in joy. I fought a desperate desire to travel back with him to the golden valley. Only love for my family and friends prevented me from going crazy. I realized long ago that my father, Grandpa Ruckert, was a saint, and I wasn't surprised at his visit, but I wish to thank him for it. It's easier to go on now. Bless you and thank you all for coming."

At Grandma's request, I led the congregation of the Salvation Army faithful, who came from all over the United States, in "Our Father," the only prayer I still knew by heart.

Ingrid recited "On His Blindness" by John Milton.

Victoria recounted Grandpa's life in the Sally Anne, and some funny and touching stories from his time as a father and businessman.

The turnout was nearly as large as Jessie's funeral.

Later, I asked Dad if his dream was literally true.

"Sometimes a daydream and a night dream are like the evening and morning stars," he answered.

I stayed much of the month of January 2002 in Duluth and, for the first time, John complained about it.

"My relationship's in trouble," I said to Diane. "He's as reserved as they ever made a man. If he's speaking out, it's significant. I have a sinking feeling."

Diane must have said something to Brad Paul. In February, 2002, Brad made his time-share two-bedroom, top-floor suite at the Hilton Margarita available to us for fourteen days.

John and I traveled with Jesse Jr. and little Catherine. It was perfect timing and beautiful weather. John was pleased with the accommodations, and we made love every single night. The Hilton had two mammoth pools at both ends of the complex, connected by an ambling pool-river with water slides and a picturesque horticultural floral canopy giving lots of shade.

It was perfect for the kids, but March was as busy as it ever got at B&R. I was working sixty-hour weeks again and dragging myself dog-tired home to Vesey on the weekends. I still managed a swim or two, a boxercise class here and there, and one night out with Pace at the firing range. But working at that pace, I couldn't afford to drink or read.

By May, things had gotten busier and I said to Diane, "By God, I'm going to lose my husband. I'm living in Duluth. We have to do something."

"Send him back to teaching," Diane said, "and take the rest of the week off–we're okay here. Go hire yourself a housekeeper in Vesey and spend some quality time with your family this weekend. With a reliable housekeeper, he could even have some conjugal visits to Duluth."

I laughed, but it was an excellent idea. Jesse Jr. was now four and a half years old, and in September would start junior kindergarten. I had just the person in mind, too. Christina Bauer's mother had been a good mother, was a former ECE, and was looking for work housekeeping. I was fond of her and she was gentle, loved kids, and had too much time on her hands since her husband had left her.

That day, I talked to John about his returning to teaching, and mentioned the evenings when he could come to Duluth or we could meet half way at motels. He agreed to it with surprising ease.

I had a right to be nervous. I thought he was becoming unhappy, but the thing about him was–and this applies to a lot of spouses and lovers–he'd never have said so until it was too late.

June was rainy and cold, July was stifling, but in neither month did I notice the weather that much. It was as though I was without family or friends. I worked nearly around the clock in solitude, and snuck away as though with my new lover to hotels and motels between Vesey and Duluth.

We used everything from the seedy to the fancy. John and I had lost all our sexual reserve with each other and began to be rough sometimes, or conversely, painstakingly slow and gentle, and then again sometimes we'd use sex toys like vibrators, silk scarves, or ice.

At the end of July, 2002, Diane was away in Chicago and John came over to the condo several times to sleep over. He'd set the alarm early to make it back on time.

The housekeeper, Nora, had ironed out all the logistics by then, and was there whenever John needed her. She intended to move in with us sometime after John started teaching, probably in October. John had been picked up for literature again at the St. Louis County Board and, though it wasn't necessarily the school or grades he would have chosen, he was happy enough with the fact that his two main requirements had been met: he was close to Vesey and he could teach English literature.

The last day of July fell on a Wednesday, and I took the afternoon off to go swimming with John, Jesse Jr., and little Catherine. We met in Cloquet, where we sunned and swam at a public swimming pool and then ate at a Denny's. I went back to Duluth alone. Diane was still in Chicago.

I would have liked to return to Vesey with John and the kids, but I had a meeting the next day with the Board of Directors that I couldn't miss, especially with Diane being away. One of the members, Shelly Powers, the former owner of Power's Laser Hair Removal and one of our strong supporters for over two decades, was leaving and needed to be replaced.

However, in a few days, I planned to take holidays in Vesey for two whole weeks.

After I had washed up for bed, I gathered my long hair and studied myself naked in the mirror. I weighed myself. It was my regular weight, and I gave a sigh of relief. I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

I was awakened at three o'clock by a noise outside the bedroom. I reached for the purse where my pistol lay only to find the purse gone. I quietly picked up the phone.

"It's dead," I whispered to myself, regretting that I'd gone to bed naked.

My heart was racing when I slipped out from under the covers and rushed into whatever I could find to wear, a pair of dress pants and a t-shirt.

I tiptoed cautiously toward the kitchen in the hopes of finding a knife or some sort of weapon. I sensed someone in the suite, and knew it was Kelsey Kratten.

Like before, he had managed to get into the suite without setting off the alarms. Someone grabbed me from behind, and a cloth with a repugnant smell covered my mouth and nostrils.

I struggled as hard as I could, but my mind wandered off and I fell asleep.

When I awoke, I found myself tied securely to a tree in the thick of a woodland, or even a remote forest. I had put my t-shirt on inside-out. I could see an earwig crawling on my shoulder, though I couldn't feel it, but I gave a a voluntary shudder and it fell off.

My head was pounding. I couldn't see the sun directly, but by the temperature and intensity of light, I could tell that it approached early morning, maybe only seven o'clock. I remembered that I had been awoken at three in the morning at the condo, and quickly counted the hours. Four. Maybe.

I realized I could be anywhere within a two-hundred-and-fifty mile radius of Duluth. This was depressing. I could be somewhere in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, or even Illinois–maybe even Canada. I knew now that Kelsey wouldn't have knocked me out with ether or brought me to a secluded forest area. A feeling came over me that I was in the hands of Ricicot Decoté.

Although my head ached slightly, my anxiety rose above my fear. Why would Ricicot bring me to a forest? He had shadowed me for some time, I supposed, but why today? I was startled to see my fear subsiding, I squirmed in my bonds, but they were expertly tied.

My distress soon became eclipsed by anger. Why would Ricicot choose me? Just because he had killed Mom? How mad, inexplicable, clever, and vengeful. Not crazy at all, or at least not crazy like he professed: that he lost his constant excruciating headaches only in the screams of his victims. Defiantly, I stopped myself from feeling fear.

"He wants to be famous," I whispered to myself. "That's why he's doing it: to be a serial-killing superstar."

I had often wondered if that's why people like the Jeffery Dahmers and John Hinckleys of the world did what they did–to become notorious. I decided that I could trick him to thinking I was paralyzed by fear and then try to kill him. I thought I had the courage for it.

Some time passed, perhaps an hour. I struggled with my bonds unvaryingly, almost lost in a trance, until a loud crack of a branch alerted me. I focused. Ricicot stood naked, ten feet away, watching me with a wide imbecilic grin and holding a long eight-inch butcher's knife.

His taut, almost eerie-looking tanned body had a grotesque aspect to it. His tool stood upwards hard as a horn, but this wasn't what made him look so unnatural and unhealthy. His skin had an orange tint along with a quality of deprivation, like someone who has starved himself for too long a time. It had an unattractive fierceness to it, with no muscle tone.

He was disappointed that I expected him. This emboldened me, and when he came within reach, I spit into his face. I remembered Pace telling me about one of Ricicot's female victims who he'd let go, a prostitute who came forward after his arrest when he had become a well-known multiple-killer. Pace figured that Ricicot had let her walk because she refused to scream when he threatened her with his long knife, even after being cut several times.

I would refuse, too. This had saved her life, and would save me.

Ricicot came closer. "Cunt!" he said softly. "I'm going to cut off your titties unless you scream for your life."

I increased my struggle with my bonds. My fury and anger drove me to cut my own skin.

"I'll kill you!" I said savagely. I saw his erection retracting, and became hopeful that I could defeat him, even kill him.

"Believe me, bitch," he returned just as savagely, "you're going to scream louder and longer than anyone I've ever had."

He came within reach again, and once more, I spit at him, catching his right eye.

He punched me in the mouth. The back of my head struck the tree and I tasted my own blood, then for the third time, I spit at him, this time with a mouthful of blood.

I caught him in the chest. He let his hatred come to his face. He rushed me, cut off my t-shirt with voracious swipes of his knife, and wiped the blood off his chest with it before throwing it to the ground.

"Nice titties," he said. His tool hardened again. "I hitchhiked to Duluth from Waupaca," he said in a high, squeaky voice. "I stole the wallet of the man who gave me a ride. He was a stupid bozo, but he drove me to Wausau. I hung around the malls, pickpocketing wallets and stealing purses. Nobody carries cash anymore. You have to get their credit cards and get a cash advance on it before they phone it in stolen. Life is much harder.

"I went to the A&P Store where Wendy Alpine works and pretended to shop while I looked for her, but I didn't find her. I managed to steal more credit cards and was able to rent a red Ford SUV, fully loaded. Pretty good, isn't it?"

His tool now stood upright and had pre-emission seeping out of it.

"The next day," he continued in his creepy, high-pitched voice, "I returned to the store, and then I saw her. Only, it's not this beautiful petite girl I used to fantasize about cutting. She's fat and ugly now–a decade and a half I'd fantasized about it, shit! She used to be prettier than you. She used to be so sweet. Now she's just a grazer, an American cow. I left with this feeling of being wronged, of someone owing me, then I thought of you. I'd seen pictures of you recently in the newspapers, and you look better now than back in 1979. You're just one of those women who gets more fuckable with every passing year.

"I still have a hideaway. They'll never find it, you know. I see that there's no fear in your eyes, but you should be afraid. No one but me will hear your screams, and believe me, you will scream. What a strange turn of events, though. I wanted Wendy, but I have settled on you, and now I'm glad I have. Your body's tight. You will be the oldest woman to be inducted into my collection. I'm going to take your toes and fingers back with me to my hideaway.

"Let me tell you something. The screams never stopped my headaches. I never had a headache in my life. I just enjoy doing it. Torturing people is better than fucking, but put them both together, wow, we're going to have lots of fun today."

Again I spit in his face and he slapped me, but I thought rather timidly.

"You're despicable!" I said, able to keep myself calm.

I saw that I had angered him.

"Let me tell you something, you bitch," he said, his tool deflating again. "Today I'm going to revenge myself against your mother. It was she who led them to my sacred burial gravesite, and who dug it up."

There sounded in the air a far-off motorcycle. Ricicot stopped to listen. I continued struggling furiously with my bonds. His tool had gone flaccid and his sack was loose.

The pleasure of angering him surged through me like a drug.

"I'll kill you," I whispered to myself, my bloody wrists nearly loose from their bonds. I struggled now in a fever pitch, feeling my hands wrenching free, the pain becoming unnoticeable.

The noise of the engine floated away. Ricicot's face took on a mindless look and his tool began to grow hard again. However, at that same moment, I broke free and grabbed his hands.

Fear roared through me, deafening my ears and blinding my eyes, but I lost the sense of my present danger and bit into his hand for all the life in me. As though from far away, I heard his scream. He dropped the knife, and in one quick swoop, I picked it up.

He scrambled back as I chased him, but he disappeared naked into the woods at a full run. I stopped and puzzled over my choices. To hunt him down or to escape? I lifted my head to the early morning sun and then looked down at my feet. I spent a few seconds staring at them.

"I can't run through a forest, in bare feet and topless, hunting for a naked serial killer," I whispered with a laugh.

"Go get him!" I urged myself in a louder voice. Jessie's voice.

He had been a millstone around my neck for too long. I wanted it over. I began to walk in his direction, passing the great oaks and elms and quickening my pace. I came to an area where clusters of birches and poplars stood side by side, and the cool morning air seemed to circulate around me. I came across an old farmer's road, a harvesting road, and turned right in a southeasterly direction as though I knew what I was doing.

My desire for revenge brought on a quality of the unreal. To be out on a farmer's road in my bare feet and topless on a sunny August morning, after having spent yesterday in a public pool and diner with my husband and children, seemed impossible, as if I somehow voluntarily lived two lives.

Ricicot had been drinking those ten ounce bottles of liquor, and I found one. The circle was closing. I pricked up my ears in the hopes of catching the sound of the engine. I had jogged for about two more minutes when, from the side of the road buried in the long strains of wheat, Ricicot jumped out at me and punched me in the face.

We struggled for the possession of the knife, and I was bleeding badly from the nose.

He punched me again and again in the face, and I fell back. I rolled away and rose. I had dropped the knife. If only I could clear my mind and think logically, be objective like Jessie had always been. He rushed me and I took my boxercise stance and punched him in the chest. The knife nearly sliced me.

Again I jumped to my feet and took my stance, but now with labored breathing. An evil smile came to his face. I owed it to my children to survive, and thought of running away. I could see that he was intent on victory.

"This is it," he whispered in delight. "I'm going to cut you good, and as you crawl bleeding toward my truck–it's just up the road–I'll come all over you. If you scream as loud as you can, I'll kill you quick."

For the fourth time, I spit at him, but this time he laughed and his tool had risen as he rushed me. He had sensed my growing fear. I kicked him between the legs, but he stabbed me in the chest above the heart. I fell, passing out.

When I came too, I was saddened to see that I was still in the farmer's field, lying on my back on the ground near a bright red Ford. However, I was, for some inexplicable reason, bandaged. I tried to get up, and found that I could, even though my chest hurt terribly.

I suppressed a desire to cough. I walked up to the truck and opened the front driver's side, only to recoil at the sight of Ricicot in the back seat. I jumped back, which caused me great pain, and then I realized that Ricicot was dead. I looked closer. He had been shot in the head.

"You're a devil," I whispered, "but who killed you?"

I saw that the vehicle keys weren't in the ignition, and I opened the hatchback. Who ever shot him had apparently bandaged me.

I opened the side door and dragged Ricicot's body out of the vehicle, searching his bloodied pockets for the keys. To my utter dismay, they weren't to be found. I searched the entire vehicle and the ground around it. Then it struck me that I was being watched.

I stood and drew a deep breath, desperate in my mind to deny what I already knew: one madman had been killed by another.

I stood confused, apprehensive, and my courage seemed to vanish. I had never had any real fear of Ricicot, even though he had nearly killed me. I had realized long ago that he was a loathsome creature, an ogre, and a coward, but Kelsey Kratten was a different matter.

I heard a soft sound behind me, and knew who it would be. It unfolded like in a dream: I slowly turned, putting my hands under my armpits so that my arms covered my breasts–which of course was absurd since he bandaged me and had seen all he had wanted.

Kelsey's features hadn't softened. Most extraordinarily, his fierce, angular face, and the sunken eyes which came from lack of sleep, from being chased by demons or something, were accentuated all the more. He dressed in black dress pants and a dull brown body-shirt.

"He meant to torture you like the others?" he said softly.

"I tried to kill him."

"I would surrender my life for you if they allowed it. I know that you look at people like me as though we were Timothy McVeigh, or bin Laden, or some other terrorist, but what you don't understand is, I have no choice. So much of creation has gone wrong. I'm not even referring to the tragedy of human love. Your grandmother was right all along. People can't seem to control their urges! But I'll tell you, any religion worth its salt should reject the open society."

"This from a murderer?" I asked boldly. I was reminded that I was facing Jessie's assassin, and I wished I'd shut my mouth.

"What else could I do? It came as a direct order from God."

"I don't believe it."

"You don't believe in God, so how could you?"

"Why do you follow me around?"

"I've been ordered to, perhaps as atonement, to protect you. Cloven says you are not one of them."

"What is there to atone for if you were ordered to kill Jessie Basle by Jesus Christ? God orders Timothy McVeigh or bin Laden to kill innocent people too."

A flash of annoyance passed over his features. "I didn't say they were innocent people."

"The Oklahoma Bombing and the World Trade Center attack killed children."

"The FBI killed kids at Waco. The Jews exterminated children in Palestine."

He stepped forward and I stepped back.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said further. "My job is done. Whether you believe me or not, I love you, and I only want peace in the world. I have the love of God in my heart."

I looked down at the body of Ricicot, and for some time remained silent.

"You don't believe me," he continued. "You can't help yourself: you were raised to be ignorant of God. But still, it's true."

He threw the keys to the SUV at my feet. "Take them," he said, "drive that way." He pointed north. "You'll soon come to a county road. Turn east, and in five minutes, you will arrive in Wausau. You know where the hospital is?"

I nodded.

"Your cut isn't deep," he continued, "but it needs to be stitched. Watching you through the years, I've come to learn that your husband is faithful and often goes to church to worship the Lord. I have decided that he is a good Christian, just like your father."

My head was swirling, but I no longer felt any danger. "You killed Jessie to stop the abortion pill, but you weren't successful. Somebody else manufactured it."

"With everything that has happened, it won't see the light of day in this country." His voice grew softer. "The unborn wait for you to live up to your dad and husband's expectations. I think I should go now. Do as I have told you, and you will be in Wausau in minutes. You won't see me ever again."

"Jessie Basle was a good person."

"To you, it must seem so."

"Does this mean you will stop following me?"

He looked into my eyes. "Cloven has directed me to perform another task." He said this with such a sound of finality that I said nothing further–but I must say, and I'm not proud of it, at that moment my eyes were searching for Ricicot's knife. Hate rose in me and now that Ricicot was dead, I became greedy for Kelsey's death as well. Mom's murder was revenged, and Jessie's should be as well.

When I looked up, Kelsey had disappeared into the woods. I reached for the keys, and then heard the sound of a motorcycle from some distance away. On the passenger's seat lay an old worn copy of Walden Two. I opened the cover. It was signed, 'Jessie Basle, 1979.'

When I stopped in Wausau, I would notify the police of Ricicot's body. What else could I do? I had no intention of putting him back in the truck, or even touching him.

I sped over the rough road, bouncing up and down in the front seat in pain, and soon came to a gravel county road. I thought that my hands should be shaking, or my heart racing, or perhaps that I should feel some numbness–but no, I remained calm, even happy. Ricicot was dead. I believed that Kelsey would leave me alone now. It had to be true. Please, it just had to be.

They were both wild beasts, just like all the fanatics and crazies scattered around the world.

I saw the paved highway come into sight, the ugly green billboard advertising light country rock. I dried my eyes and thought of Mom and Jessie. Two wonderful women killed by two different types of madmen, but one as sick as the other: both had succumbed to the irrational.

I phoned John when I arrived at the Marathon County Central General Hospital. Dad, Ingrid, Gerald Jr., Arthur, Grandma, Jesse Jr., little Catherine, and John were there within the hour. The police came and asked for a statement, which I gave while pretty drugged up with Tylenol Three and other medication. That night, before I was transported to The Vesey General Hospital, Pace and Brack Sanders came to my room.

"Have you heard the news?" Pace asked. I shook my head, wondering what it could be and how he could so nonchalantly come and face me after Ricicot had waltzed into the condo and abducted me. Perhaps he read my expression correctly, judging from what he said next. "We were tracking Kelsey Kratten. Perhaps we should have seen that he was extremely distracted–and that was because he was following Ricicot Decoté, but we didn't know that."

"It's okay, Pace," I said. "What happened?"

"Kelsey Kratten is dead. We tried to take him alive at the motel where he was staying, but he fired on us. He thought I was alone. He didn't know Brack was with me. Brack shot him."

I looked suspiciously at Brack. "I asked him to surrender," Brack said and threw up his hands, "and he turned and fired at me."

Pace nodded to concur.

"It is over," I whispered. "Pace, get John for me."

"He knows," Pace said. "Get some rest. I'll tell you the grisly details when you're feeling better."

When I awoke next, John was sitting beside me. Dad was sleeping in a chair in the corner. I looked down at my arm and saw that there were no bandages, just open stitches. It didn't look too bad. When I peeked down my top at my chest wound, it was still bandaged. I didn't investigate further.

"How are you?" John asked in his soft, gentle voice that I loved so much.

"What an ordeal," I said with tears in my eyes.

Dad woke up and smiled. "Are you okay, Pumpkin?" I nodded. "I'll go get Jesse Jr. and little Catherine. They're with Molly."

He left, and I took John's hand. I remembered, years ago, Jessie boasting to Grandpa Ruckert–they were arguing about religion at the time–that she could produce a miracle as good as any of Binny Hinn's. Grandpa cocked his eye and smiled ruefully at her, but he was wise enough to hold his tongue.

"I'll raise the level of the sea without water," she said in her own fierce way. "I'll gather up all the so-called sacred icons, the statues, churches, mosques, crosses, Bibles, Korans, Sanskrit texts, altars, shrines, and all such superstitious nonsense, and hurl them into the oceans. Modern man has no need of them. They are a crutch!"

"Man without religion," Grandpa roared back, "is an animal!"

John reached over and kissed me softly. Then, suddenly, I was struck by an idea. If a woman had two great men in her life, like John and Dad, it would have to be balanced out–to be fair to all the women without great men, I mean–by two horrible monsters such as Kelsey and Ricicot. But that didn't make any sense. What about Mom and Jessie? Who balanced those two great women out? I didn't know of any female monsters equivalent in any way to Ricicot or Kelsey. I had never even heard of such women. If there were any, there seemed there were too few of them in history to count.

"What are you thinking?" John said.

"Nothing, just silly thoughts about how it all works."

end

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