by Jim Guhl
“I have high confidence in you, Mr. Finwick, and if I was a gambler, I would bet on your success. And if you ever need my help along the way, well . . . all you have to do is ask.” I soaked it all up. Then she was gone.
As you can imagine, a kid doesn’t hear stuff like that said about him every day. Those words would have puffed anybody up, and nobody needed puffing more than me. It was like a whole bunch of my worries washed right down the Fox River, through the Great Lakes, and all the way out to the Atlantic Ocean.
Mark kept coming over every day, and on Thursday afternoon he even delivered my Hoot Owls for me, all 232 of them. When I tried to give him the money, he said I probably needed it more than him and that he was just glad to return the favor for letting him stay over for most of the week.
My last visitor came on Friday. Mark had gone somewhere, and I was just hanging out in my room reading Ghost Rider comics after finishing a stack of worksheets for Mrs. Borger. I heard Mom talking to somebody after a knock at the door. It clicked shut and my mom came up the stairs.
“There was a girl on the porch who says she’s from your English class,” said Mom, looking worried. “She wanted to see you but I said you were too sick. She brought you this.” Mom held out a blue envelope and I took it.
“Why didn’t you let her come in?”
“She’s colored.”
“Mom, her name is Opal Parsons. She’s my friend.”
Mom sucked her lungs full of cigarette smoke and blew a big cloud at the ceiling. Then she put a hand on her hip like she was fixing to give me a speech. I could hear the words in my head already. There are hundreds of nice white girls in Neenah. I don’t know why you’re hanging around with Negroes.
Mom’s eyes went to the blue envelope. “Aren’t you going to open it?”
“Maybe later,” I said.
Mom made a scene, rolling her eyes and shaking her head before stomping down the stairs. Part of me felt angry, but then I remembered all her troubles. On top of that, she was Grandpa Asa’s daughter, and I knew that was where her ideas about black people came from in the first place.
I ripped open the envelope. It was a homemade get-well card with a duck drawn in colored pencil on the front.
Sorry I was mean to you on the bus.
I’ll save your seat in English. Get well soon.
Opal
It was time to take my headache pill, and I did, but to tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure I needed it anymore.
On Saturday morning I had a temporary relapse of my headaches right around the time that confirmation class was supposed to begin. Mom took the bait and let me stay home.
“Just don’t get any ideas about fishing,” she said. “If you’re too sick for confirmation, you’re too sick to go outside.”
Mark came over again in the afternoon and we watched Batman on TV and played a few games of checkers and chess. He was looking around my room and his eyes landed on the Eskdale wide-mouth gallon milk bottle with the metal handle.
“What’s in there?”
“Stuff.”
“Like what?”
“Like the bullet, the cigarette butt, and the yellow envelope that Heiselmann got from the Cadillac Man at the point.”
Mark pulled out the yellow envelope and studied it. “Maybe these doodles mean something.”
“I doubt it,” I said.
“You never know. Maybe the sailboats mean he’s a member of the Neenah Yacht club. Maybe the basketball player means he has a kid on one of the local teams.”
Then Mark held the envelope up to the light and squinted at the fine print along the edge. “Made in U.S.A. by Kensington Paper Company,” he said.
“That’s no help,” I said. “You can probably buy them at a million stores all over the country.”
“Maybe it didn’t come from a store. Maybe the Cadillac Man works at Kensington Paper Company,” said Mark. “I’m pretty sure they’ve got a mill in Appleton.”
“What are we going to do, walk in the front door and ask them who stole a stupid envelope?”
“No, we’re going to drive through the parking lot and look for a black Cadillac.”
“Huh?”
“You sure we can’t get the keys to your grandpa’s pickup truck?”
“Not until he gets out of jail.”
I managed to sneak out of the house once on Saturday while Mom was getting groceries at the Food Queen. Something had been bugging me all week since I had helped Wolf catch mooneyes behind the library. From my garage I zipped west past the hospital, across First Street and through Island Park, where some old guys were reeling in bullheads along the fence bordering the Fox River. At the tracks I ditched Ike in the weeds and hustled over the embankment. A lightly trampled path led to Wolf’s little cave underneath a pile of abandoned railroad ties.
I got down on my knees and poked my head inside. “Hello. Are you in here?”
Silence.
I took my almost-new spin-casting rod and reel and pushed it into the opening along with a small box of sinkers, bobbers, swivels, hooks, and even a couple fishing lures I had scrounged from the river bottom. Then I pulled a sheet of paper out of my pocket and read the note that I had scratched out at home.
YOU MIGHT NEED THIS MORE THAN I DO.
Good grief, I thought. The poor guy didn’t even have a house. The least I could do was help him catch his supper.
23
Sunday morning came and, as usual, Mom and Sally slept in late. I sat down at the kitchen table with my Froot Loops and Tang. A stack of newspapers sat on the chair next to me, so I fished through them. Most of the news was about the reelection victory of President Nixon, and the picture showed him smiling and making the V-for-victory symbol with both hands.
Guess who else got reelected. Sheriff Heiselmann, and by a landslide even bigger than Tricky Dick’s. Believe it or not, most people in our county really liked the guy. They had their reasons too. Heiselmann was always in the news helping out with civic causes. He volunteered his time for the Save the Clock Tower campaign. He went to schools and the Boys Brigade to teach kids about the dangers of drugs. He even started a fundraiser to feed starving children in Africa. Gosh—it seemed like everybody except me and Mark thought the sheriff was Mr. Wonderful.
Mom finally came down to the kitchen and she could hardly believe it when I told her I wanted to go to church again.
“It’s required for confirmation,” I said.
“Hmm . . . Are you strong enough to ride your bike?”
“Yes.”
I got there fifteen minutes early so I could meet Mrs. Borger. I grabbed a cookie and looked around. A skinny, bald-headed guy with a white mustache pulled up next to me with a cup of steaming coffee. He had a white shirt and striped tie with a gold tie clip in the shape of a wrench.
“You waiting for Gladys Borger?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“She’s a nice lady. Always comes by herself. Are you going to sit with her again?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. I think she gets lonely sometimes. Her husband’s not the best egg in the basket, you know.”
I thought that was an odd thing to say. “What do you mean?” I asked.
He pantomimed like someone drinking from a bottle.
Just then, Mrs. Borger showed up. She waved, hung up her coat, and scurried over to where I was talking to the bald-headed guy. We all exchanged greetings and I walked with Mrs. Borger down the center aisle. She held onto my elbow just like last time, and the usher directed us into the third pew just as the organist started playing and the choir joined in. Before I knew it, we had said a prayer, sung two hymns, and listened to some words from the Bible. It was time again for Pastor Olson’s sermon, and I leaned forward like a bobcat—ears open and mouth shut.
Pastor Olson did it again. While the last sermon had been about how it’s hard to understand God, this one was about how it’s sometimes hard to even hear Him. This time, instead of talking about war,
he talked about the death of his mom. Pastor Olson was just a kid when it happened, and he told us about the empty feeling and how he wondered if his life would ever feel normal again. And guess what. Through all of that grief, right at the time when he needed help the most, God was silent. Not a whisper, not a signal—nothing but stone-cold silence.
Then Pastor Olson told a story. It was about a girl who had lost her pet kitten in the big dusty hayloft of a barn on a day when fresh bales were being stacked inside. A half-dozen men from the hay crew scrounged and searched through the corners and top layers of baled hay, but they never found the little kitten.
“It took the small girl, herself, to finally find the trapped kitten,” said the pastor. “And do you know how she did it? She waited until sundown when all the men were gone and the wind quit blowing and everything had gone quiet in the dead of night. Then she lay down perfectly still. All around her there was nothing but silence. And in that silence the girl did one thing and one thing only.”
The pastor seemed to lean toward me from over the pulpit and I leaned in toward him. Then he continued.
“The girl listened.” Something like a flash-cube went off in my brain. “Only by putting all her energy into listening did she finally hear the weak cries from that little kitten, trapped seven layers down in a gap between hay bales.”
I know that Pastor Olson prepared that sermon for the whole congregation, but it sure seemed like that story was made just for me. He was two for two on sermons. I already knew that it was a great average for baseball players and figured that it was pretty darn good for preachers too.
I had another cookie while I waited for Mrs. Borger to drink coffee and chat with about five hundred different people in the fellowship hall. She sure was a nice lady—way nicer than I ever expected during the first week of school when it seemed like she hated my guts. After a good long time, the crowd cleared out. It was now or never.
“Mrs. Borger?”
“Yes, Mr. Finwick?”
“Remember when you said I could ask you for help anytime?”
“Yes, Mr. Finwick.”
Monday started off with me sitting next to Opal Parsons again on the bus.
“Are you feeling better? Did you get my card?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. I hoped my smile was enough to say the rest.
“I’m sorry I was mean to you. I was mad because of your suspension from school.”
“I guess the volcano wasn’t such a great idea.”
“I told my dad about it and expected him to get mad at you just like I was. I expected him to call your volcano a dumb idea. Do you know what he said?”
“What?”
“He said it was an ingenious idea.”
“He did?” I sat up a couple inches taller. Mr. Parsons? The machine technician? That was a pretty big compliment coming from a man like him.
“Yes. He saw the picture in the paper and loved it. He even taped it to the door on our refrigerator. And do you know what else he said?”
“What?”
“He said it took guts. He told me that there are millions of people who have great ideas but not many with the guts to act on them.”
I felt my chest and shoulders rising.
“So I changed my mind,” said Opal. “I’m sorry I got mad at you.” She touched the back of my hand with hers. It only lasted a few seconds, but she really did touch my hand and there was nothing accidental about it. Maybe, to be honest, I should have told her that it was Steve who came up with the actual idea of the volcano. Oh well, I thought, no sense getting all particular about everything.
For the whole rest of the day it felt like I was riding a magic carpet from class to class. Everybody was nice to me, I handed in all my worksheets, and was caught up again on homework. I even came back to the Science Resource Center, and Mrs. Schwartz was so happy that she winked at me from across the room. It helped, of course, that I hadn’t seen Larry Buskin all day. And in case you’re wondering—yes—I was wearing the Eaglewing steel-toed boots with the reinforced shank.
When the last bell of the day rang out, I flew into Mrs. Borger’s classroom, where she was grading papers.
“Are you ready, Mrs. Borger?”
“I guess so.”
She packed up her papers and we walked outside to her yellow Chevy Nova. It was kind of a junky car, but then I remembered that teachers didn’t get paid like Rockefeller, and the only thing that mattered was that it went down the road. I saw Barry Hattenkoff give me a funny look when I got in the car with Mrs. Borger, but I didn’t give a rip.
We picked up Mark at Red Owl and drove past Banta Paper, through Menasha, out on Plank Road and finally north through the countryside to Appleton. At the Fox River, we zigged and zagged through the mill district until we were face-to-face with the tan brick buildings of the Kensington Paper Company. Just like all the rest of the mills, it faced the street on one side and hung out over the river on the back. That old Fox River sure worked hard. All that water power used up. All that wastewater dumped back in, just so we could have paper for writing and reading—even for going to the bathroom.
“There’s the parking lot,” said Mark.
“And why are we interested in the parking lot at a paper mill?” asked Mrs. Borger.
“It has to do with finding the person who murdered my dad,” I said.
She looked at me, unsmiling. “Shouldn’t the police be helping you instead of me?”
“The police aren’t even trying, Mrs. Borger. We think there’s something fishy going on. I know this sounds weird, but it feels like the sheriff doesn’t even want to solve the crime.”
“That’s ridiculous; everybody knows it was the Highway 41 Killer.”
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“I most certainly don’t know,” said Mrs. Borger.
“That’s the problem, ma’am, nobody does.”
Mrs. Borger nodded her head. “And you think the real murderer is employed by the Kensington Paper Company?”
“Maybe.”
“Would you like to tell me why, Mr. Finwick?”
“Not really.”
“Would you like me to drive through this parking lot, Mr. Finwick?”
“Yes, please.”
Mrs. Borger turned left and proceeded slowly down the first aisle toward the river.
“What are we looking for again?” she asked.
“A black Cadillac,” said Mark.
We drove back and forth through the rows of cars and probably passed a couple hundred, but not a single Cadillac. Then it occurred to me that paper mill workers didn’t actually get paid like Rockefeller either. Since we were in Appleton anyhow, we drove around on the nearby streets on the off chance that we would find the right car. No luck.
“Shall I drive home now, boys?”
“Could we stop one more place?”
“Where?” she asked.
I didn’t want to say it, afraid of her reaction. At last, it was Mark who blurted out the words.
“Gordy’s Gun Shop,” he said.
Mrs. Borger had an opinion and she wasn’t shy about sharing it. “Absolutely not!” she said.
A five-minute lecture followed in which she explained that gun shops were not a place for youths to go without their parents and that we had no business entering one for any reason.
“Under no circumstances shall I allow either of you to set one foot in such an establishment,” she said. “I suppose you intend to pursue some sort of revenge-driven foolishness with revolvers strapped to your belts and bandoliers of ammunition wrapped around your shoulders like Pancho Villa. I’m surprised at you boys, especially you, Mr. Finwick.”
She glared at us with eyes full of lightning. I kept my mouth shut, afraid that I had just washed all of that good will and confidence right down the toilet. It was Mark who finally spoke. “We just want to ask the owner a question,” he said.
“What kind of question?”
Mark looked at me. “Show h
er, Delmar.”
I pulled the hunk of copper and lead out of my pocket and held it up between my thumb and index finger. Mrs. Borger loosened her death grip on the steering wheel and pushed her glasses back up on the bridge of her nose.
“And what, pray tell, is that?” she asked.
“That’s the bullet that killed my dad.”
Her eyes got damp and a shaky hand went to her mouth.
“We want to ask the gun shop man what kind of gun fired it. The police must not have looked very hard at the crime scene. It took me and Mark to go out there and find it.”
“You should give it to the sheriff,” she whispered.
“That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you, Mrs. Borger. We don’t trust the sheriff.”
The gun shop man must have weighed three hundred pounds, with eyebrows like pine cones and a gray and brown mustache that covered up his whole mouth. He studied the bullet under a magnifying glass making quiet, groaning noises as he puzzled over the object. He bounced it in his hand and then put it on a small scale.
“It’s a .357 Magnum copper-jacketed soft point. Probably 158 grains.” The man shifted his tobacco from left cheek to right and leaned on the edge of a glass-covered gun display case. I looked at Mark and he looked at me. Mrs. Borger looked at the ceiling like she couldn’t wait to get out of there.
“What kind of gun fired it?” asked Mark.
“Don’t know. There’s lots of revolvers made for .357 Magnum. Smith & Wesson, Colt, plenty of others. The only way to know if a bullet matches a gun is to have a ballistics expert match them up as a pair.”
“How do they do that?”
“They fire a few bullets from the gun into water or some other soft material that won’t ruin the bullets. Then they match up the scratch marks on the outside of the bullet made by the chamber and barrel of the gun. It’s like a fingerprint, and every gun has one.” The man looked again at the bullet. “It’s pretty beat up from impact, but a ballistics expert might still be able to match it to a gun.”
