Eleven Miles to Oshkosh

by Jim Guhl

  “I’m proud of our Neenah protest marchers. They represent the best of the United States of America as they seek justice and push for answers to the senseless murder of Deputy William Finwick, one of our finest officers. Today I am proud to say that we are bolstering our commitment to arresting and prosecuting the evil murderer who . . .”

  I heard a popping sound from somewhere behind me. A lady, maybe Mrs. Borger, screamed. My eyes darted from person to person. Everyone had the same expression of confusion and fear. My eyes finally landed on Sheriff Heiselmann just as he slumped over the podium and fell sideways into the crusty snow. A bunch of people, including the red-haired deputy, charged to the aid of the sheriff. Others scrambled backward and sideways. Opal pointed at the patch of woods to our west.

  Twice more we heard the popping sound and everybody either ran behind the cars or dropped prone to the ground. The red-haired deputy picked up a radio transmitter and called for help. Another deputy pulled a shotgun out of the trunk of his patrol car and ducked behind a brush pile to watch the woods behind us.

  I was scared as heck. My heart banged away like a jackhammer inside me. On hands and knees I crawled around in the snow trying to find everybody. I spotted Mom and Mrs. Borger crouched behind the news van. The church ladies and Mrs. Parsons scurried behind the sheriff’s car where Opal and Mark had already found refuge. I found Rhonda kneeling next to the fallen sheriff along with the red-haired deputy and a news reporter. Through it all, hundreds of cars continued to zoom both ways on the highway, to and from the Butte des Morts Bridge.

  I crawled along the gravel shoulder toward the protection of the row of vehicles. Suddenly, the ground erupted. The spray of dirt and pebbles stung my face and I couldn’t understand what was happening. Then my brain woke up and realized that the Highway 41 Killer was shooting again and, this time, he was trying to kill me. Instinctively I fell to my stomach and made myself flat. Another bullet sent up a spray of sand and gravel so close that I felt the stones bounce off my face again. I jumped to my feet, then ran behind a patrol car and stayed there.

  The sound of sirens came, faint at first but then in swarms. Flashing lights roared in from north and south. Several cop cars peeled off on the side road that led toward the woods. Others skidded to a halt on the side of the highway. An ambulance arrived and paramedics ran to the sheriff. I crawled in that direction.

  “Keep breathing,” shouted a cop as he unzipped the sheriff’s coat and ripped open his shirt. A paramedic cut through the rest of his clothes exposing his bare chest.

  The bullet wound in his chest was a ragged mess that left a white bone sticking out. Even the cop had to close his eyes for a moment. “Exit wound,” he said.

  The paramedic ripped the paper cover off a gauze pad as big as my geometry book. He pressed it against the wound and looked at me. “Push your hands down on this,” he said. I did as told. In seconds the white pad was soaked, red with blood. The paramedic rushed to set up a plastic tube and a bottle of fluid.

  I heard a groan and looked again at the sheriff. His bloody chest rose and fell, rose and fell. Then all was still. The paramedic felt for a pulse and found none. He pulled my hands away and put his overlapping palms on Sheriff Heiselmann, trying to restart his heart with chest compressions. After a dozen or so pushes, he checked again for a pulse. It was no use.

  I reached back in to push the gauze pad back over the top of the wound. If nothing else, it would cover the shredded flesh.

  The paramedic touched my shoulder. “It’s over,” he said. Sheriff Heiselmann was dead. Murdered on the shoulder of Highway 41, just like my dad.

  The cop walked away. The paramedic returned his box of first aid supplies to the ambulance. I looked at my bloody hands and felt dizzy, then rubbed them in the snow and on my pants. From my knees I looked across the field at the grove of trees where the gunshots had come from. Police officers with shotguns and pistols snuck around the edges. I forced myself to look again at Sheriff Heiselmann, his face now lifeless and gray. Thankfully, his eyes were closed.

  I watched as the sheriff’s body was loaded into an ambulance. The red-haired deputy glared at me with bullets in his eyes. “You happy now, kid?”

  41

  Just like last time, the protest march never made it across the Butte des Morts Bridge. And just like last time, we were all driven in cop cars down to the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Department in Oshkosh.

  The office was almost empty when we got there. The dispatcher told us that every available officer had been either ordered to the crime scene or had gone there on their own.

  Mrs. Samuelson rounded up the church ladies and they prayed in the corner. Mrs. Parsons and Mrs. Borger consoled Opal with hugs and whispers. She had been shaking and crying since the shock wore off. Mark and Rhonda sat like zombies in wooden chairs, saying nothing. Mom found a cup of coffee in the dispatch office and warmed her hands on it, leaning against the wall.

  More than anything else, I needed to wash my hands. The dispatch lady directed me to a bathroom. For ten minutes I scrubbed away Sheriff Heiselmann’s blood with a bar of soap. When I finally sat down between Mark and Rhonda, my hands were raw. My brain whirled like a dust devil.

  Dad, Wolf, and Sheriff Heiselmann . . . all three dead.

  One by one, the officers returned. Then the newspeople came in with their tape recorders, cameras, and notebooks. Before the reporters could corner us, a man in a blue shirt and striped tie herded our team of ten marchers into a conference room. He introduced himself as Detective Phelps and said that we would have to wait, without discussing what we had observed, until he could interview each of us individually.

  They started with Mrs. Samuelson and the church ladies and moved on to Mrs. Borger, Mrs. Parsons, Opal, and Rhonda. All were interviewed and returned to the conference room. Mark was next, and they talked to him for what seemed like a long time. Then my mom and I were called. Imagine my surprise when FBI agent Culper stood to shake my hand.

  “We meet again, Mr. Finwick,” he said.

  I nodded. Mom looked at me suspiciously.

  “Hello, Mrs. Finwick, I’m Agent Culper from the FBI office in Milwaukee. From this point forward, I will be leading the investigation.” He placed a small object on the table.

  “What’s that?” asked my mom.

  “That’s the bullet that killed Dad,” I answered.

  Not surprisingly, the murder of Sheriff Heiselmann was the lead news story on every television station in Wisconsin. The red-haired deputy stood in front of a pack of reporters all shoving microphones in his face.

  “Was the sheriff the only victim?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you identified a suspect?” asked a reporter in the front.

  “No.”

  “Do you have a description of the killer?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have any leads?”

  “Not much. We found footprints in the woods and tire tracks in the snow. We also recovered a shell casing from a .30-06 rifle. It appears that the killer was waiting in ambush.”

  “Do you expect it was the Highway 41 Killer who murdered Officer Finwick last summer?”

  “That seems likely.”

  Right after the ten o’clock news, our phone started ringing nonstop. We answered the first few calls, which included everything from concerned neighbors, to reporters looking for interviews, to curious people we had never even met before. When we received a call from some creep yelling “Cop Killer!” into the phone, Mom yanked the cord out of the wall, and I don’t mean gently.

  Mom glared at me like I was the source of all evil in the world. “You satisfied?” she asked. My mouth swung open but no words came out.

  My mom fumbled for a cigarette, but her hands shook so bad that the whole pack fell to the floor. Her eyes closed. Her chin quivered. When she opened her eyes again, the tears poured out. She poked a finger at my face, so close that I had to pull back.

  “You are done with this—th
is—protesting. Done with all of it, and that includes Mark and your teachers and your colored friends—all of it—you hear?!”

  Wide-eyed and ready to bolt, I glanced at Mark. He watched my mother’s rant like it was expected and normal. He then scooped up the fallen cigarettes and matches and placed them on the kitchen table. Mom gathered up the stuff and stomped upstairs toward her bedroom.

  Mark looked at me. “Got any booze?”

  I kicked his chair and busted out the lower rung, sending splinters of wood across the kitchen floor. “No . . . I don’t got any booze, asshole. You think drinking is the answer to everything?”

  Mark stiffened. “Screw yourself, Delmar.” He walked outside into the January night, two miles from his home, and slammed the door.

  Monday was the worst. Donna Krelling, a cheerleader who hadn’t said a word to me in my entire life, stopped at my locker as I spun the combination. “Are you happy now, you little punk?” I looked up and saw hatred staring back.

  The cafeteria lady with the curly hair and big forehead shot me a look of disgust as I presented her with my tray.

  “Well if it isn’t the Prince of Justice,” she sneered, before slapping a scoopful of scalloped corn on my plate and turning her head away.

  Okay, I got the message. One murder had turned into two, and it was my fault. How many more people would have to die to satisfy me?

  Kids who never gave me a second glance glared at me, then turned away. Tuesday was almost as bad, and when my gym teacher told me to demonstrate a chest pass, he fired the ball at me like it came out of a musket loaded with black powder.

  Remember when I was the little shrimp who everybody ignored? Well, they weren’t ignoring me anymore. People noticed me in the halls. People talked about me. I was somebody all of a sudden, and that somebody was mostly despised.

  The news stories on TV supported their claim. Reporters shared heartwarming stories of Sheriff Heiselmann, the protector of the county. The man who had cracked down on the burglary ring in Vinland Township. The man who captured the escaped prisoner from Waupun. The man who selflessly donated his time at schools, teaching children about the dangers of drugs and alcohol.

  Yep, they lauded the sheriff as a wonderful man. A wonderful man, now dead, and for what? The senselessness of it all had heads shaking everywhere. Only one thing was for certain. That Finwick kid and his protests were somehow at the root of it.

  By Friday I had pretty well perfected the weary, head-down foot shuffle of the ultimate loser at Shattuck High. Like a ghost I drifted through the halls. When in class, I kept my nose in a book. Anything to avoid eye contact. Even Opal, Rhonda, Steve, and Mark had somehow managed to elude me, and for all I knew, had faced their own dose of scorn.

  “Mr. Finwick! Mr. Finwick, May I see you please?!”

  For the first time in four days, I lifted my chin off my chest and looked hopefully through an open door. It was Mrs. Borger. I approached her desk.

  “Are you surviving?” she asked.

  “Barely.”

  “I know what you mean. I’m surprised at the reaction I’ve been receiving.”

  “I’m not.”

  “For what it’s worth, Mr. Finwick, you’ve done nothing wrong.”

  I shrugged.

  “I consider your protest march an act of courage and I’m proud of you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Whatever you do from here, I want you to know that you have my support.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Borger.”

  “Will you be attending the funeral this weekend?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Good. I’ll see you there.”

  “Will you be ready for next week?”

  “What’s next week?” I asked.

  “Romeo and Juliet auditions! Did you forget?”

  Criminy! I had forgotten. Did Mrs. Borger really expect me to go through with it? After all of this? After descending all the way to least-popular kid status? I could see myself on the high school auditorium stage. I could already hear the wisecracks.

  “Do I have to?” I asked.

  “You don’t have to but you should. You would be doing me, Rhonda, and yourself a favor. I know the two of you would be wonderful.”

  I shrugged. “Okay.” I sure didn’t want to disappoint Mrs. Borger. As near as I could tell, she was the only person in the world who still liked me.

  42

  The funeral for Sheriff Heiselmann was, of course, huge. It took place at a giant-sized, Catholic church in Oshkosh, and thousands of people showed up, including uniformed officers from every county and large city in Wisconsin as well as the four bordering states. The mayors of Oshkosh, Neenah, and Menasha were all there. Family members took up four rows and even the governor showed up in a black Buick to pay his respects.

  Just like in school, I felt hundreds of eyes on me as I walked past the casket before sitting with my mom and Sally for the ceremony. Everybody else from the march was there too. Mrs. Borger was there. Opal sat with her mom. The church ladies sat as a group with Mrs. Samuelson, taking up two places all by herself. Even Rhonda came, and she looked like a different person wearing a black dress, lady’s shoes, and her hair all done up nice. She sat with Mark, who looked like himself.

  I had never been to a Catholic funeral before. It was way different from my dad’s. For one thing, I was surprised to find out that four or five priests all had different duties during the Mass. On top of that, they had helpers, mostly teenagers who carried things, held books, and the like. There was holy water sprinkled on the casket and other rituals that I didn’t understand. The organ music and singing sounded sad and slow like they should be, and the prayers were mumbled in Latin so we never did know what they said. Just like when Dad died, the church was packed with black-clad mourners filling every pew and officers lined up in the back. I saw the red-haired deputy and he saw me but we both turned away from each other at the same time.

  In the days following the funeral, things got worse instead of better. Suddenly, the reality sunk in, and I knew what it felt like to be responsible for somebody’s death. Let’s just say my conscience was the busiest place in my brain.

  Maybe I should have had my mom sew cloth symbols on all of my shirts like they did in The Scarlet Letter. I could wear the letter J for Jerk on Mondays, and I for Idiot on Tuesdays, S for Selfish on Wednesdays. There weren’t enough days in the week for all the labels I had picked up. The C for Coward had been on me so long that it had practically become a tattoo.

  Sure, I had made a big fuss about justice. I had pointed the finger at the sheriff, making him out to be a nasty guy. I had broken the law and used the fact that I was a fifteen-year-old kid to get away with it. I had put it all on television because I was so danged proud of everything. But what did I accomplish? I got the sheriff killed and left the real killer still roaming free. Maybe some judge should have just sent me to juvie last fall and saved the whole world a lot of misery.

  And what did I have to look forward to? Well, for starters, it was pretty much a certainty that my handful of friends would drift away and never come back. Then there were the hateful stares and mumbled comments. And of course I could look forward to the lunch lady in the cafeteria splashing gruel onto my plate and glaring at me every single day. Heck, she’d probably even find a way to spit in my dessert.

  Did you know that if a person tries hard enough, they can be miserable for a pretty long time? For me it lasted for another whole week. I moped around, dragging my feet and staring at the floor every day. I worked hard at not talking, not smiling, and not even making eye contact with anybody. I was more miserable than the hunchback of Notre Dame, and proud of it too.

  In the meanwhile, when I wasn’t looking, everybody else got back to treating me like Del Finwick. Those who always thought I was okay still did. Those who considered me a worthless little minnow hadn’t changed their minds either.

  Here are a few of the things that happened during the week following the
funeral. Opal gave me the chocolate pudding from her lunch. Mark asked me if I would take him ice fishing. Steve told me he had a new invention to discuss with me. And Rhonda said it was time to get serious about being Romeo. I found out what that meant during sixth hour on Wednesday in the chemistry lab where we practiced the balcony scene.

  The raisins in my oatmeal came when Mrs. Borger called me on the phone Sunday morning to tell me (she didn’t ask) that she was picking me up to go to church.

  Crap! I was afraid of that. I had enemies back there. People who were mad at me for protesting even before I got the sheriff killed. And there was one enemy in particular who lay in wait, no doubt—a certain gray-haired lady who wore a blue hat.

  Mrs. Borger’s voice was unswerving. “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” she said.

  Click!

  The people in church were mostly nice to me. The man with the wrench-shaped tie clasp smiled and nodded from across the hall. Mr. Kleinschmidt from the JC Penney store shook my hand and asked me how I was doing. A lady in a purple dress who I didn’t even know actually stopped just to give me a hug.

  As Mrs. Borger and I were fixing to head into the sanctuary and find a pew, the blue-hat lady appeared from behind the coat racks. She shriveled up her face and stared me down over the tops of her glasses. She gripped her purse with both hands like she was afraid I would either steal it or throw her to the floor with a judo move.

  “Good morning,” said Mrs. Borger.

  “Good morning,” said the blue-hat lady. She then turned her attention back to me. “Hello, young man.”

  “Hello.”

  “Are you happy now?”

  Before I could patch together a response, I felt a hard yank at my elbow and was jerked toward the sanctuary by Mrs. Borger. She towed me down the aisle like a raft behind a tugboat until we settled into a pew in the second row. Her ears had turned red and her lips pressed together so tightly that they almost disappeared. She needed to let off some steam, but since you can’t do that in the second pew, she let herself cook and simmer instead. By the time the organ prelude was over and we finished singing the first hymn, she had chilled back to a normal temperature.