Dead Stream Curse: A Northern Michigan Asylum Novel

by Erickson, J. R.

  Kaiser’s breath had grown fast and ragged.

  “He knew, Liv - what I’d done, what we’d done. Strickland started to ask questions. He asked me about Gaylord, about my mother. I wanted to rip off the binds and hop a train like we did as kids. I never wanted to look on that patient with the sunken eyes and the scribbling hands ever again. ‘Tell me about the witch, Stephen. The Norse witch,’ Strickland asked.”

  Liv wanted to cover her ears with her hands, but she couldn’t. Even if Stephen had not bound her, her arms were like lead weights resting beside her.

  “’What is he?’ I demanded, nodding toward the patient, who again scribbled on the paper. Strickland did not respond. He looked down at the page. ‘Tell me about the trunk, Dr. Kaiser,’ he asked me. I looked at the patient in the shadow. He had tilted his head as if he were waiting, listening for the next revelation, and that’s when something in me exploded. I started rocking back and forth. I slammed the front of the chair down, and the front leg splintered and sent me to my knees. I wanted to scream. I wanted to kill the man in the corner, but then I heard it again. The voice of chamber. Shhh… it seemed to whisper. And I grew silent, my heart slowed, and the blood stopped pulsing in my head. It was helping me, Liv.”

  Stephen sighed and leaned forward into the side of the bed, clutching Liv’s wrist in his clammy hands.

  “The next morning, Strickland knocked on my door. 'Welcome to the Umbra Brotherhood, Dr. Kaiser. Burn these after reading them.’ He handed me a letter of introduction and a code of silence. I was in.”

  Liv held her breath as the story ended.

  She waited for Stephen to go on and struggled with the delirious notion that he might crawl into bed beside her and fall asleep. Or worse he might stand in the room all night revealing the torture he’d inflicted on his patients in the last two decades. And she would listen and carry it, because she had helped to create the monster that was Stephen Kaiser.

  He leaned down and Liv gasped as he planted a cold moist kiss on her forehead. Then he turned and left. She listened to the door close and the lock slide into place.

  Chapter 25

  September 1965

  Jesse

  Jesse pushed in the door to Quarry’s Pub. The heat and the smell of spiced rum swirled up around him. He shrugged out of his coat, hung it on the rack by the door, and ambled over to the bar, where an older man sat sipping from a clear glass of golden liquid.

  The man glanced at him as he sat down.

  “Help ya?” the bartender asked. He was a short man, mostly bald, with a tuft of dark hair that rimmed his lower scalp. He planted his hands on the bar, and Jesse saw scabby knuckles. The man was a fighter, or he regularly threw drunks out of the bar, maybe both.

  “I’ll take an old-fashioned,” Jesse told him, laying one of his newly acquired bills on the counter.

  The man took it, made his drink, and dropped his change in front of him.

  “Don’t reckon I know ya,” the man next to Jesse said. His voice was raspy and on the edge of slurring.

  “Jesse Kaminski,” Jesse told him honestly, offering his hand.

  The man shook it.

  “Bart Wynkoop,” the man told him.

  Jesse spotted a gold band on his ring finger. The man had the pouchy face of a regular drinker. Sacks of fleshy skin ballooned beneath his small, dark eyes.

  “You new in town?” Bart asked.

  Jesse sipped his drink and shook his head.

  “I sell cars, and I’m planning on moving my family north. I heard about a gem of a house in these parts. My wife loves big, old antique places. Some friend of a friend told her something like that might be for sale around here. Figured I’d check it out on my way through town. They said it was a real big house tucked back in the woods, a Victorian style house,” Jesse explained.

  The man scratched his chin.

  “Don’t know nothin’ about a Victorian. Half the houses in these parts are shacks, and the other half are these new ranch doo-hickies popping up every which way.”

  The bartender walked back toward them, cleaning a glass.

  “Sounds like the old Kaiser place. But I ain’t ever heard it went up for sale.”

  “The Kaiser place?” Jesse asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” the man beside him crooned before downing his glass. “Hit me with another, Punchie.”

  The bartender set the glass down and grabbed a bottle of scotch.

  “Punchie?” Jesse asked.

  “It’s not what you think,” the bartender told him dryly. “I played Punch in Punch and Judy a thousand years ago in the school play, and the nickname stuck like a fat woman’s girdle.”

  “It fits in more ways than one,” Bart murmured from the side of his mouth, winking at Jesse.

  “Do people live in the Kaiser place?” Jesse asked.

  “Nah,” Punchie shook his head. “Not for twenty years, probably.”

  “The ma took off, and the son skedaddled not long after,” Bart announced. “Boy, was she a tart, that Kaiser woman. Had quite a following in these parts, and from what I heard, not all those men were just admirers.”

  Punchie rolled his eyes.

  “Bart, you think half the women in this town are floozies.”

  “I’d lean toward sixty percent,” Bart corrected, leaning forward and giving Punchie a jeering smile.

  This last drink had broken down the man’s inhibitions. One more and he’d be singing like a rooster at dawn.

  “I didn’t know the Kaiser family,” Punchie told Jesse. “Her boy went to some fancy private school. The mother was a socialite, but she sure didn’t socialize with the townsfolk. I heard she threw big parties and people came from Chicago, New York.” He shrugged. “But those are rumors.”

  “Rumors, my ass,” Bart jeered. “Lawrence Rector was my best friend for forty years, and Adele Kaiser invited him to every one of those parties. He barely had a pot to piss in, but he was real smooth-like.” Bart offered Jesse another exaggerated wink. “Looked like Clark Gable, too. The women got wet if he smiled at ‘em. I can tell you, she did more than throw him a few bucks here and there. She bedded him whenever she didn’t have a big fish on the line.”

  “She wasn’t married?” Jesse asked, imagining the wedding picture of the pretty dark-haired woman.

  “Her husband hung himself in the cellar,” Punchie said, shaking his head. “A terrible thing for the son, I’m sure.”

  “I’ll tell you this,” Bart slurred. “Lawrence had a piece of her long before her husband took the noose’s way out.”

  Punchie frowned at the man.

  “Bart, even if that’s true, I don’t think you need to be telling half the town.”

  “Half the town?” Bart lurched from his stool and fell sideways into Jesse.

  Jesse pushed him upright.

  “Gotta piss,” he muttered, and ambled toward a dark hallway in the back of the bar.

  “So, if this Kaiser woman left town, what happened to her son?” Jesse asked.

  Punchie shrugged.

  “He was eighteen when she split. Far as I know, he went off to some big university. I hear he’s a doctor, but I couldn’t give ya a single name of a former friend of his. Well,” he paused and pulled at the bit of hair on his chin. “There was a girl he chummed around with. But what was her name?” He wrinkled his brow. “I was older than the Kaiser kid, and the girl was new in town and only here for a year or so, and then she disappeared too.”

  “She disappeared?” Jesse tightened his grip on his glass.

  “Liv,” Punchie announced, nodding his head. “She lived in the shacks on the south end of town. The hillbilly ghetto, we called it as kids. Her ma died of the cancer a few years back. She had a few siblings, but they scattered. The sister is still around. Arlene Hester. Her husband works at the cigar factory. They live in one of the new neighborhoods on the west side of town.”

  “No one knows what happened to her sister, Liv?”

  “Maybe she took of
f with the Kaiser boy. Hard to say. In those days, people came and went. The Depression, the war. Opportunities poppin’ up and dryin’ up all in the same day. A lot of people shifted. I was lucky, my dad owned this bar. Back then he served up a hot breakfast every morning and a barbecue every night. That kept us afloat during the prohibition. Course, he didn’t go dry in those years. Nobody did, really, ‘cept maybe the church. Though the church is usually the first to move operations into the back room and carry on business as usual.”

  A door slammed, and Jesse jumped.

  He finished his drink and pushed the glass toward Punchie.

  “One more, please.”

  The bartender refilled him.

  “What do you want to move to a little hole in the wall like this for, anyway? Best we got around here is the picture show, and even they run movies that came out six months ago.”

  “Just an idea I’m kicking around. My wife’s got her mind set on this house she heard about. I’d like to get in touch with the Kaiser family. Any idea how I might do that?”

  Bart walked back to his stool, surprisingly steady on his feet. He sat down and gulped his glass empty.

  Punchie frowned at the man but didn’t cut him off.

  “Talk to Mona Peters. She owns North Michigan Properties and handles the real estate here in town. If anyone knows how to find Adele or Stephen Kaiser, it’s her.”

  Bart put an elbow on the bar and balanced his head on his hand.

  “I’d put my money on finding that kid hanging in the basement in the old house, just like his old man.”

  Punchie grimaced and shook his head.

  “Stop talkin’ all that trash in my bar, Bart. I’m not lookin’ to defend your dumb ass tonight if somebody overhears you.”

  Jesse sipped his drink and thought of the trunk on the third floor of the Kaiser house.

  * * *

  Mona Peters’ business and home occupied a white, two-story farmhouse with bright blue shutters and a little sign over the door that read, ‘So Glad You’re Here!’

  When Jesse opened the door, a little bell tinkled.

  A woman looked up from a long white counter. The counter tidily displayed real estate brochures. Crystal bowls of peppermint candies sat on either end.

  The woman appeared to be in her seventies, though carefully applied makeup and recently dyed brown hair masked her age.

  “Good day, young man. Welcome to North Michigan Properties. How can I be of service?” her voice was deep and jolly and reminded Jesse of Nell’s mother. The woman could stop a kid dead in their tracks with the slightest shift in tone. He’d watched Gabriel freeze with a cookie halfway to his mouth when his Gram-Gram said Gabe, popping the B sound at the end and making it very clear he’d better put that cookie back.

  Jesse grew self-conscious under the woman’s gaze. If she shared other traits with Nell’s mother, she’d be able to spot a lie from across a room.

  He wished he’d worn his own clothes, tattered as they may be, rather than the young Kaiser’s.

  “Hi,” he said, stepping up to the counter. He searched for a lie closer to the truth, but found nothing. “I’m interested in buying the Kaiser house out on Spellway Road.”

  The words tumbled out, and Mona Peters watched him silently. Her gaze made Jesse uncomfortable, but he plastered on his ‘house hunting’ face and prayed she wouldn’t look too closely at his worn hands and stolen clothes.

  “I’m Mona Peters,” she told him, extending a manicured hand across the counter. Bracelets jangled on her thin wrists, her blue veins stark beneath her gauzy skin.

  “Jesse Kaminski,” he offered, shaking her hand. 

  “Polish,” she said, eyeing him again. “My mother was Polish - her surname was Bartkiewicz. She loathed it. When she married my daddy, she said her favorite part was changing her name to Peters.”

  Jesse smiled politely.

  “Polish names are a doozy,” he agreed. “My wife wasn’t crazy about Kaminski, but then her maiden name was Duckwitz, so she figured it was an improvement.”

  Mona laughed and shook her head.

  “Enough about names. Tell me what on God’s earth makes you think the Kaiser house is for sale?” she asked, walking through the little swinging gate and around the counter. “My office is just through here.” She gestured toward a little hall.

  He followed her into a round sitting room with sun filtering through a large bay window. She had arranged wicker furniture around a glass-topped table strewn with real estate pamphlets.

  Jesse took a seat and crossed his legs.

  “I don’t think it’s for sale,” he admitted. “But my wife heard about the house through a friend, and I stopped by while passing through on business. It looked abandoned. I hoped to contact the owners…”

  He noticed Mona’s eyes lingering on his jacket. He wished he’d skipped the blazer that morning. It was too warm to wear one and probably the most recognizable piece of clothing from the young Kaiser’s closet.

  “A houndstooth jacket,” she marveled, touching the lapel of the coat. “I haven’t seen one of these ages. My Freddie, God rest his soul, loved his jacket so much he near-slept in it. When it finally got too small, he moped for weeks, complaining he had nothing to wear.”

  Jesse laughed and glanced down.

  “My wife picks out my clothes. I’m not much for fashion myself.”

  “And you said you’re passing through on business. What business is that?”

  Jesse tried to embody the man he was claiming to be. He sat up tall and balanced his hands on his knees.

  “I’m in the car business. I’m a salesman in Detroit.”

  “And that brought you to Gaylord?”

  Jesse grinned. “My boss likes to size up the competition.”

  Mona smirked.

  “Not much competition in these parts, but a man who devalues the underdog never stays at the top. Smart man, your boss. And he’s fit to let you go?”

  Jesse nodded, smiling, and then quickly shook his head.

  “Well, no. I mean he’s expanding. He wants a presence in the north, and I’m the man for the job.”

  Mona clasped her hands together at her narrow waist. She wore a blue dress in the almost exact color as the shutters, cinched at the waist with a fat white belt.

  “And your wife is already dreaming of her new home.” Mona tapped her pink fingernails on the arm of her chair. “There’s a beautiful Colonial that came on the market not two weeks ago. Right downtown. You could walk to it from here. A little white gazebo in the backyard for entertaining your friends.”

  Jesse blinked at her.

  “My wife is really fixed on the Kaiser house.”

  Mona pursed her lips and studied him.

  Jesse wanted to wriggle out from under her stare and pressed his hands into his thighs to keep his leg from bouncing.

  “The Kaisers haven’t been around these parts in twenty years. Adele Kaiser and Stephen Kaiser. They’re the only two, unless he’s married and had a few baby Kaisers, though I doubt it. He always had an odd look in his eye, that boy.”

  Jesse feigned mild interest.

  “Do you know how to reach them?”

  Mona cocked her head.

  “It’s possible to reach them, but do I know how? No, I surely don’t. Adele and I were not exactly friendly. She kept to herself, her and her boy. And not to be a terrible gossip, but the women who befriended Adele Kaiser soon saw their husbands visiting for tea more than themselves. She was a widow. And some might have reasoned, she grieved by…” Mona fluttered her hand, “having loose morals, but Adele’s reputation developed long before her husband died. Some whispered her infidelities drove him to it.”

  Jesse sat back. Mona was repeating the same story he’d heard at the bar. 

  “I don’t make a habit of speaking ill of others, Mr. Kaminski. I’m just telling you, finding Adele won’t be an easy task. She didn’t leave many friends in this town. I hate to say the same goes fo
r her child, largely thanks to his mother.”

  * * *

  Jesse bought a burger and fries at the Silver Spoon Diner, sliding onto a stool at the counter.

  The diner was busy, most of the booths filled with teenagers sharing milkshakes and cheeseburgers.

  He ate quietly, mulling over the stories offered by Mona and the men at the bar. Their revelations told him little about the body in the closet, but a picture of the family who’d occupied the house had begun to emerge.

  As he stood to leave, a bulletin board by the door caught his eye. He paused and gazed at listings for free kittens, furniture for sale, and piano lessons.

  In the top right corner of the board, a missing poster hung. The image was in black and white and portrayed a young woman with bouncy dark curls and diamond-shaped eyes. She smiled with an easy confidence that Jesse remembered from the girls he went to high school with, the girls who knew they were pretty and expected you to notice.

  Beneath the word Missing he read:

  Veronica Ann Medawar.

  Last seen: October 31, 1945

  Age: 17 at time of disappearance.

  Please help us find our missing daughter.

  The waitress, a girl of no more than seventeen herself, saw him looking.

  “That’s my aunt,” she told him.

  “Your aunt?” Jesse glanced away from the poster. The waitress before him looked uncannily like the missing Veronica.

  She bobbed her head up and down.

  “I wasn’t born when she went missing. Scary though, right? I’ve never been to a Halloween party. My dad forbids it.”

  “Did she disappear at a Halloween party?” Jesse asked.

  “Just a sec,” the girl told him, delivering the milkshake on her tray. The boy she handed it to reached out and tugged a strand of her long dark hair. She giggled and swatted his hand away.