Dead Renegade

by Victoria Houston

  Though the exterior of the little house was in desperate need of a paint job, a narrow border of grass nestled between the house and a crumbling rock wall bordering the sidewalk meant something to someone: pristine clay pots of pink petunias spilled their blooms like offered prayers at the feet of two stone figurines.

  The cracked concrete walkway leading up to the front door was blessed with the presence of a three-foot high statue of the Virgin Mary, head bowed and hands folded in prayer, the blue of her mantle long faded from the sun. At the far end of the border and facing the street was a brown-robed St. Francis of Assisi, a tiny sparrow poised on the fingertips of his left hand, a birdbath cradled in his right. Two religious icons that many residents of Loon Lake, Osborne included, found ironic; neither had been able to buttress the house from the evils occurring within.

  Osborne knew the homeowner as a fellow parishioner at St. Marys Catholic Church. Edna Shradtke might be in her seventies but she never missed Mass on Sundays, six-thirty a.m. rain or snow, sitting year after year at the same end of the same pew, a pew two rows down from Osborne’s. So it was that every Sunday morning he followed her slow walk up to the Communion rail and back. She never drank from the chalice, nor did he.

  Widowed thirty years now, Edna was unusually tall for a woman of her generation. Bone-thin with facial features that Osborne found slightly askew due to the angle and crook of her nose—the result of its having been broken several times during her marriage to a short, thick man who had been known to beat her and their four children nightly before he had the good grace to fall out of his fishing boat one night dead drunk.

  The beatings were known town-wide because they could be heard by the neighbors. But what Osborne didn’t know until after he had lost his wife was that one of Edna’s sons had once attempted to molest his eldest daughter, Mallory. While he may not have known of that incident until years after it had occurred, he knew plenty about the man who did it: Bobby Shradtke. And he sure as hell knew Bobby’s car.

  The unexpected sight of that car for the first time in years triggered a memory of such impact that Osborne had to pull over. He held his breath as his mind churned through the details of a conversation he would never forget—and made a connection so disturbing he felt sick to his stomach.

  Twenty-three years ago, the driver of that car had followed nine-year-old Mallory home from the Loon Lake skating rink one January night. Osborne and his wife had not yet built their lake home, so the family lived in town just three blocks from the rink. A polite child, Mallory was careful to follow parental instructions and address adults as “Mr.” or “Mrs.” no matter who they were. Grown-ups were grown-ups—to be treated with respect.

  So when the man in the red car asked directions to the Loon Lake Pub she did her best to answer until he opened his door, exposed himself and tried to drag her inside—all the while hee-hawing in a strange, high whinny, a noise which Mallory told Osborne still gives her nightmares.

  His car stopped at the curb across the street from Edna’s home, Osborne stared at the vehicle in the driveway. He was sure it was the same one: a red 1960 Ford Sunliner convertible with a white top. While the tailfins, chrome and hulking size might spark fond memories among some car buffs, he felt only a mounting nausea.

  The longer he looked, the more he was sure: that expression on Mason’s face, her refusal to tell her mother what had frightened her this morning. Mallory had behaved just like that after the episode with the stranger in the car.

  He remembered how he and Mary Lee had known something was up that night when Mallory dashed into the house crying, her shoulders shaking. But she had insisted it was nothing, refusing to answer their questions until they decided she must have had a falling out with one of her little friends and hurried her off to bed. Mary Lee would never know what really happened because Mallory kept her secret for years—until the day after her mother’s funeral.

  Mary Lee’s death had caught Osborne and their daughters by surprise when a lingering bronchitis turned deadly in the midst of a blinding snowstorm. Even with the Herculean efforts of Ray Pradt—who braved swirling snow and sub-zero temperatures to bolt his plow onto his pickup at two in the morning and rush them to the emergency room (this for a woman who had done her best to get him kicked off his property because his house trailer blocked the view from her dining room window!)—it was too late.

  The day following the funeral and the wake, Osborne and his daughters, the three of them reeling from the fatigue that hits after hours and hours of assuaging the grief of friends, opted for a retreat to the woods—far from phones and flowers and casseroles. They stepped into their crosscountry skis, slipped on well-stocked backpacks and skied in silence and brilliant sunshine over three miles of fresh powder to Osborne’s hunting shack.

  In their packs were venison steaks, russet potatoes, two cheeses, crackers and half a case of Leinenkugel Original. In their hearts was a driving need for release from the emotions of the week. And so they drank the beer, grilled the steaks, fried the potatoes, threw salt and pepper on everything, then drank more beer and settled in to talk of Mary Lee the only way they could: through tears and laughter.

  Though Osborne had felt he was third wheel in his wife’s life—a necessary nuisance once their daughters were born—he learned that afternoon that she had held the girls at a distance, too.

  “I just never did anything quite right in Mom’s eyes,” Erin had said with a rueful smile. “Too much of a tomboy when she wanted a princess.”

  “No, no, that was me,” said Mallory.

  “W-r-o-o-o-n-g! I was the bad one,” said Erin. “You were the model child. You were a princess: you always wore the clothes she picked out.”

  “That’s true. I’ll give you that,” said Mallory. She grinned as she lifted a bottle of beer to her lips, “I remember you buying that prom dress that drove her nuts.”

  “Ohmygod,” said Erin. “I hated the one she wanted me to wear—so I bought one with my own money. I loved the pretty pink polkadots … strapless … real low in the back … and the fact that it was on sale so I couldn’t return it. Mom said it made me look like a hooker. She wouldn’t let me wear it. Had to wear that yucky green thing of yours or miss the prom.”

  Erin laughed. “I still like the dress. I have it, you know—hidden back in a closet. Guess now I can wear it for Halloween maybe, huh?”

  “That was a darling dress, Erin,” said Mallory. “I think the only reason Mom didn’t like it was because you didn’t let her pick it out. You think she was bad about a dress—try my marriage!

  “Dad, you don’t know this, but Mom waited ‘til the night before my wedding to tell me I was making a big mistake. As it turns out, she was right—but I wish she had mentioned it earlier, given me some reasons instead of one blunt statement. Life might have been a lot less expensive—I’m still paying my divorce lawyer.”

  “You think that’s bad, let me tell you the time that …” Erin jumped in with another anecdote.

  As his daughters had joked and cried through their memories, Osborne had listened with his usual sense of remorse and confusion. He had never been the husband Mary Lee needed, wanted. Never made enough money, never built a house big enough to match her dreams, never moved to a city more sophisticated where he might have had a practice that could pay for a more elegant lifestyle.

  A sudden hoot of laughter from Erin as Mallory mimicked her mother yanking Ray Pradt’s illegal PVC pipes from the fence near her rose garden caused Osborne to tune back into their conversation. “Mom was furious when she discovered Ray was emptying the sewage from his house trailer back there ‘cause he couldn’t afford to put in a septic tank. Does he still do that, Dad?”

  “Heavens, no. Now, girls, that’s enough. Your mother was an opinionated woman, but she loved you. You two were the most important people in her life.”

  “No, Dad, we weren’t,” said Mallory with a determined shake of her head, “Mom’s bridge club came first—she only really la
ughed when she was with those women. Think about it.”

  “Mallory’s right, Dad,” said Erin. “When it came to us, Mom was always … aloof. She certainly wasn’t touchy-feely, not with me anyway. I just made her crabby.”

  “Don’t argue with us, Dad,” Mallory chimed back in as she popped the cap off another Leinenkugel, “I know I’m right because I paid a shrink ten thousand dollars to help me figure it out.”

  “Mallory, you felt that unloved?” Osborne couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “Kinda like Erin just said—I always thought I was doing something wrong. But I know now that I wasn’t really. For reasons that we’ll never know, Mom was just short on affection. I suppose that’s not the worst thing a parent can do, but I do worry about one thing that may have happened because I was afraid of making her mad …

  “Do you remember the night I ran home from the skating rink? When I was so upset?”

  “Yes. You’d been in a fight with one of your friends. You kids were always hitting each other with snowballs—”

  “It wasn’t that.”

  And then Mallory told Osborne about how the red car had pulled up, the man asking his questions, talking low so she had to approach the car whereupon he tried to grab her. She was able to pull away but not before he threatened her.

  Osborne was stunned. “Wait a minute. That really happened? For heaven’s sake, Mallory, why didn’t you tell your mother and me?”

  “Oh, Dad, it’s what we’re saying about Mom,” said Mallory. “We loved her even if she was always critical. That night I was sure she would say it was my fault. Like I shouldn’t have been out so late. Or I must have said something or done something to cause it to happen. Kids … right or wrong, kids think it’s their fault. And he did tell me he would kill you and Mom if I said anything.”

  “Oh, my God,” Osborne had said. “All right, I can see not telling your mother. But me? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Dad,” Mallory had said, tipping her head towards him, “Mom ran the show. Not you.

  “But you know what has worried me most all these years? Something I was finally able to work through with my shrink, though it still haunts me: haw many other little kids got hurt by that creep because I didn’t say something that night?’

  Osborne accelerated so hard coming out of the intersection his tires spun. Could it be that Bobby Shradtke was out of prison? Molesting youngsters again?

  He had to see Lew as soon as possible. Forget the reunion party, he needed advice. A little girl had woken up this morning innocent. Was it already too late? He could only hope she had not been touched.

  If she had, then he would need help—to keep from doing something he should not do.

  CHAPTER 9

  Gazing out the window to his left as he sat in Edna Schradtke’s living room, Kenny watched the Subaru slow to a stop across the street. He shifted in his chair, hoping to get a good look at the driver, but the sun reflecting off the driver’s side windows made it impossible to see. After a long pause, the Subaru drove off. Kenny shrugged. Probably just someone taking a call on a cell phone.

  He turned back to the man sitting on the sofa across the room. If eight years of hard time had damaged Big Bobby Schradtke, you sure couldn’t see it. He was still six feet tall and all angles—thin as he’d been as a teenager and with that head that looked like it had been in the wrong place when someone slammed a heavy door.

  It had struck Kenny years ago that the distance between Bobby’s ears was too short while the length of his head from chin to hairline was too long. A hairdo that hinted of a 1950s ducktail didn’t help either. Then there were his eyes, which looked like they’d been slipped onto his face kinda sideways. Yep, Bobby was one weird-looking dude when they were kids, and just as peculiar now. Guys at the bar were always surprised to hear he and Ron were brothers.

  The living room, tidy and spare with the one sofa, two maple end tables holding lamps and three chairs, including Edna’s rocker, was stifling in the summer heat despite the open windows. Didn’t seem to bother Edna or her parakeet, both of whom were fixated on Oprah. So Kenny sat and sweated, watching Edna’s fingers weave together a crochet needle and a line of bright red yarn while her sons talked over the sound of the TV as they worked their way through a case of Bud.

  “So, Bobby,” said Kenny when there was a lull in the brothers’ conversation, “what-ah brings you back to Loon Lake? Wouldn’t you be better off in Wausau or Green Bay? More jobs for electricians ‘round there, I hear.” He kept his voice small in the event he was making a mistake just by opening his mouth.

  Bobby settled his weird eyes on Kenny, tipped his beer can up for a swig, wiped his mouth, and said in the same spidery voice he’d had as a kid: “Maybe you’re right, Kenny. Yep, no doubt you are right. Sonofabitch.” Bobby sat with his legs akimbo, the left ankle resting on the right knee, right arm thrown across the back of the sofa. “But, man, there is no room in the inn.”

  “Whaddya mean?” Kenny’s question caused Ron to raise a finger in caution and nod towards their mother. Maybe they shouldn’t discuss this?

  “I mean they got me listed as a sexual predator and no one will rent to me. That’s what the hell I mean. Except Ma, right Ma?”

  Edna turned calm, sad eyes his way and nodded. She had a solemn grace to her that always surprised Kenny. How had such a quiet woman with her gentle ways given birth to these rough men? Men capable of brutish behavior and foul language—though rarely the latter in Edna’s house and even then only Bobby got away with it.

  He chalked it up to the old man. He had seen that guy once and made sure to stay out of his way. Even as a little kid, Kenny knew mean when he saw it.

  “Bobby,” Edna took her eyes off the television screen to gaze at her son, “I want you here. You stay as long as you want. Maybe you’ll help me fix the house up a little? Ron never has time, all the logging he’s been doing.” Her voice was soft, pleading but proud.

  “I will, Ma, ‘till I make some dough anyway.”

  Edna studied her oldest son. “Why don’t you just plan to make this your home? Keep out of trouble. You need a rest, Bobby. Ron, you tell him.”

  “Mom loves you best, man,” said Ron with a hoot and a swallow of his beer. “You stay here, I’ll bet she leaves you the house.”

  A certain edge in Ron’s voice prompted his mother to shoot him a warning look. Then she reached over to pat Bobby’s hand, “I want you here. I want you safe.” The emotion in her voice made it clear to Kenny: Edna did not believe Bobby was guilty of anything.

  The elderly woman pushed herself up from the rocker and, one slippered foot after the other, shuffled towards the kitchen. “Excuse me, boys, I need to roll out those cinnamon buns I got rising.”

  Ron winked at Bobby: “Wha’d I tell you? She’s got dementia. There’s no damn rolls in the kitchen. I don’t let her near the stove.”

  Once she was out of earshot, Bobby set both feet to the floor and leaned forward, shoulders hunched as he braced his elbows on his knees, to whisper to Kenny and Ron. “Gotta tell you something disappoints the hell out of me. Stopped by to give my regards to ol’ Rita—Kenny, you remember Rita? She was my ol’ lady who finked on me.

  “Turns out she passed away last year. What the hell? Diabetes, high blood pressure, I don’t know. Guess she had a stroke. Nobody told me, goddammit. And here I been plannin’ a present for that lady for eight goddamn years. Wanted to thank her for all she done for me, y’know.”

  “Yeah, right. Good thing she passed away,” Ron said with a chuckle. “Likely you wouldn’t be here today. They’d find her all beat up and have you back in the slammer.”

  “Yeah, but, man, it would be worth it. It would be so goddamn worth it.” Bobby slammed his right fist on the sofa cushion.

  Kenny felt a chill despite the hot room. He did not want to hear this. All he ever knew was that Rita was the woman who had refused to let Bobby stay at her place after his escape from a minimum securit
y prison outside Milwaukee. Of course, if she hadn’t called the cops on him, she would have gone to jail herself. But what Kenny didn’t know and didn’t want to know was the rest of the story.

  He could recall only that there had been a child, Rita’s child by another man. A girl. Deer hunters had found the little body frozen, the collarbone fractured and evidence of other bruises on the arms and legs. The kid had run from her mother’s house in the dead of winter. No jacket even.

  Bobby’s defense lawyer had alleged his client was framed by the former girlfriend, that Rita was an abusive parent, and managed to get him a reduced sentence on a charge of battery to a child, but people who knew Bobby knew better. They knew.

  After all, Bobby Schradtke was a habitual offender going back to his early teens. He had launched his career by running away to join a carnival, but he was soon arrested for robbery and sent home. This sparked years of arrests for theft, possession of burglary tools, stealing cars, and two episodes of attempted sexual assault on a minor. It was an arrest for distributing crack cocaine on tribal lands that won him his most recent sentence—eight years and four months. But now, in his early forties, Bobby was a free man.

  “So this town’s gone soft,” Bobby was saying. “Hell, that’s good for my business.”

  “What do you mean?” said Kenny. “Hard as hell to make a living up here still. Been this way for years.”

  “Can’t believe you got a broad as chief of police. Now that’s what I call sweet. Sweet and easy.”

  “What exactly did you hear?” Ron asked, blowing cigarette smoke towards an open window. “That lady’s been around a couple years now. She’s tough. I seen her kneecap a couple drunks my size. I would not call her ‘sweet.’“

  “Had a meeting this morning with my parole officer and she was there. Kept quiet. Didn’t say much. A couple other guys got paroled were there, too, so we were about six of us altogether. We got the rules read, the usual shit,” said Bobby with a shrug of indifference.