“Depends,” he said. “No statute of limitations on murder. They’re open but hopeless. About five of those in the last seventy-five years have never been solved. Some have had murky outcomes. Like the old Swenson murders.”
“Swenson murders?”
“Swenson was the name of the family. Hideous thing. Old case. Happened when I was just a kid.”
“Mind if I take a look?”
“Nope. In fact, you really should look at all those files. It will give you a good idea of some of the procedures we use in this county. Or don’t use,” he added gloomily.
“Can I work on them?”
“There’s nothing to work on, Lottie. We’re talking ancient history here.”
Immediately, the wheels started turning. I wanted to have an active role in investigating Zelda’s murder. So far, Sam was treating me like an intelligent, pampered, well-mannered guest. He clearly expected me to go away in a very short time. If I could find new information about an old, unsolved murder, my status would change.
I went to the drawer and found the Swenson folder. I poured a cup of coffee, carried it back to the rickety desk Sam scrounged up for me, and began to read.
Triple Murder in Gateway City
by Valeria Comstock
OCTOBER 29, 1949. Last Thursday, the Herman Swenson residence was the scene of a bizarre tragedy that is still under investigation by Sheriff Andrew Morrow. His office released the following account of the crime:
Herman Swenson allegedly found his wife, Emily Swenson, murdered in her bed when he returned from a trip to Gateway City. He claims he was a day late getting home and spent Wednesday night by the side of the road after their Model A stalled in the dust storm ten miles from their house. He walked on in to his farmstead Thursday morning.
Swenson claims that upon discovering his wife’s body, he rushed outside and began looking for his seven-year-old son, Johnny. When his son did not reply, Swenson went back inside the house and phoned Sheriff Morrow. According to Swenson, the earpiece to the phone was dangling when he got home, indicating that Mrs. Swenson had tried to call out at some time. Sheriff Morrow reports that no one on their party line could call out Wednesday due to downed lines. The line had been repaired early that morning. Sheriff Morrow went to the farm at once, accompanied by the county coroner, John Babbitt.
Coroner Babbitt reported that although Mrs. Swenson died of strangulation, she was in childbirth.
Sheriff Morrow found Johnny Swenson dead in a well in back of the house. The whereabouts of the baby’s body is unknown.
Herman Swenson has been charged with the murder of all three. Dr. Henry McVey has said that Swenson has been in a state of deep shock from the time his son’s body was located by the authorities.
“How could it have happened?” I blurted the words, not caring about sounding unprofessional. I looked at Sam.
“We don’t know,” he said. “No one ever knew, and no one understood it, either. He had always seemed as normal as apple pie. But it was after the war. He was losing his farm, taking it hard, because all around him folks were doing better.”
“You said this was one of the murky ones. Why?”
“Herman never owned up to it. Said he didn’t do it. Then he was crazy out of his mind for so long no one would have believed him anyway. But it’s always bothered me that he never owned up to it. I was a kid at the time, but when I was elected sheriff and got to looking at it, there were some things that didn’t seem right. Never have.”
“Such as?”
“Can’t see where they looked for much of anyone else. ‘No need,’ they said. Herman was already half-crazy with worry over the farm. In fact, that’s why he had gone to town so close to Emily’s time. He had talked to the banker, trying to keep them from foreclosing. Didn’t work. They were coming Monday morning, anyway. Going to take everything he had. Common knowledge at the time. They figured he snapped. Tried to keep Emily and Johnny and the baby from an even harder life than they already had.”
“But you weren’t satisfied with this account?”
“Nope. Wasn’t then, and I’m not now. Read on.”
I opened the manila envelope containing the official police report and pulled up the photos. The hair on my arms rose. I ran for the bathroom and threw up. I marched back out. Not looking Sam in the eye, I grabbed my purse, went back to the laboratory, pulled out my cosmetic bag, gargled Listerine, squared my shoulders. Then I went back to the table and picked up the photos. I risked a quick look at Sam who was disguising a bleak smile with a pull on his pipe.
“Her belly was slit open,” I said. “The paper just says ‘in childbirth.”
“Yes. Like a hog being butchered. It was different back then,” he said. “We figured the press didn’t need to know everything. The Gateway Gazette just called Sheriff Morrow for information and he sort of cleaned things up. According to the coroner she was strangled first.”
“The mutilation wasn’t in the paper,” I said.
“No. A lot of folks knew about it. But they didn’t print every gory little detail like they do now. They had some respect for families and for cops trying to do their job.”
“What would drive a man to do this?” I stared at the yellowed hand-written report.
“Everything I’ve heard about Herman tells me that he couldn’t have, wouldn’t have done this,” Sam said flatly.
“Where is Herman Swenson buried?”
He smiled. “In the nursing home.”
“He’s still alive?”
Sam snorted. “If you can call it that. He had a stroke ten years ago. Been at Sunny Rest ever since.”
“Can I see him?” I asked eagerly. “Do you mind?”
“Won’t do no good. He can’t talk. Can’t think. And no, I don’t mind.”
“But before I see him, since we don’t have a microfilm reader here, I’m going back to the historical society and look at old newspapers.”
“Everything that’s ever been written about it is in that file.”
“That’s not the kind of thing I’m looking for.”
***
Back at the office, I dug out microfilm of early Carlton County newspapers and located birth announcements for Herman Swenson and Emily Champlin.
There’s an art to reading newspapers. It’s dependent on intuition and open-mindedness. The scholarly analysis comes later, but in the beginning, I Zen it, making connections I wouldn’t notice if I began with preconceived ideas.
This initial research is a mystical process. Some mornings when there is a certain slant of light and if I’m not interrupted, it’s as though I step into the past. I’m there, living the time, wearing the clothes, eating the food, breathing the air.
Herman was three years older than Emily, born in 1921. Just to be on the safe side, I started reading back issues of the Gateway Gazette well before his birth.
There was nothing that caught my eyes about Herman’s parents. Back then, local news columns reported everything. No detail of anyone’s life was sacred. A couple of months after Herman’s birth, another name caught my eye. A Rebecca Champlin had been born September 24, 1921, to the same parents as Emily Champlin.
So. Emily had had an older sister.
Chapter Fourteen
I started a new file, printed off Herman and Emily’s birth announcements, copied the story written by Valeria Comstock, and the police report, which I had assured Sam would be for my eyes only as I’d wanted one for cross-checking.
I reread Comstock’s account, then I pulled the earlier reel of microfilm off the machine and rethreaded it with the film from 1949.
Swenson Murder
November 2, 1949. Citizens of Gateway City gathered Wednesday for the funeral services of Emily Champlin Swenson and her son, John Sinclair Swenson. Although heavily attended by friends and neighbors in the community, the husband and father, Herman Swenson, was absent as he is still under psychiatric observation in the Osawatomie Mental Institution.
The
only family in attendance was Rebecca Champlin, Mrs. Swenson’s sister, who had been out of town during this grim ordeal and, alas, had returned to find her only sibling and her adored nephew murdered by her own brother-in-law.
When interviewed by this reporter, Miss Rebecca stated that she could not bear to live in this county a second longer. Heavily veiled and faint from the strain of burying her beloved sister, Miss Champlin requested that her neighbors grant her a measure of privacy while she put her affairs in order.
“I’m leaving,” she declared. “I do not have the heart to live here where I will constantly be reminded of my sister’s death.”
Miss Champlin put her farm and land up for sale the day after the service. The auction will be combined with the sheriff’s sale of the Swenson land and property on September 12, as the two properties are side by side. The Swenson auction will be held in the morning and the Champlin Auction in the afternoon. Miss Champlin’s land is located just down the road from the Swenson homestead.
As of this writing, the police have not been able to break Herman Swenson’s refusal to disclose the whereabouts of the baby’s body.
There would have been no laws to protect this man back then. No Miranda rights read. Damn sure no CSI teams. I checked the police report. As Sam said, they never looked for anyone else.
My mind buzzed with unanswered questions. Had Rebecca Champlin ever married? Been courted? Loved? If not, why not? Why were there no parents mentioned at the funeral in Comstock’s story? Were both sets of parents dead?
I forwarded two weeks to the sale bills. Rebecca’s notice featured a prosperous homestead. Herman’s displayed the devastating cruelty of sheriff sales from a time when every county had a Poor Commissioner and a literal Poor Farm. A time when every last penny paid to each person from the Poor Fund was listed in the paper with their name and dollar amount: Such staggering sums as $1.30 or $1.52 per month.
A sheriff’s sale listed and described every single item a family owned. He counted each fence post, pot or pan, dish towel, toy, wash tub, harness, tool, canning jar, knife, and spoon. The Swenson’s contained an entire separate column for needlework: embroidered and crocheted linens and towels, tablecloths, and bedspreads.
Rebecca’s billing listed prime cattle, sleek horses, mahogany furniture. All the trappings of a flourishing and well-appointed farmstead.
In fair weather, the dual sale would have been well attended. I made a note to check historic weather records although I knew the intrepid and gossipy Valeria Comstock would surely comment. I forwarded to the day following the sale. Valeria gushed over the amounts paid for Rebecca’s possessions, but she stated Miss Champlin had declined an interview.
She had managed to get a photo, however. Like most of the women in the background, Rebecca wore club-heeled, laced shoes. The neighboring women were in rayon prints; she was in full formal mourning, heavy veil and all.
A week later, there was another article, which answered one of my questions. Herman’s parents were alive.
“My boy didn’t do it,” swears Albert Swenson. “He’s a good boy. He loved his wife and son.”
According to Comstock, Sheriff Morrow had telegraphed Swenson’s family in California, immediately following the murders. They had moved there in 1930 after the stock market crash.
My eyes burned. Why had they moved? Why was Herman Swenson still living in Carlton County after his parents moved to California? One account of the Swenson murder referred to the Old Champlin estate. Emily’s parents. Had Herman married into money? Did his parents lose money in the crash? Why was he farming Emily’s parents’ land?
I stopped and rubbed the muscles in my neck. They ached miserably and it would be impossible to read all the papers from 1920 on in one day. But the questions kept buzzing. Deciding I wasn’t starting early enough yet, I stopped, put a sign on the door that I would be back in twenty minutes, and ran up the stairs to see Minerva.
She glanced up from her computer.
“Can you wait a minute, Lottie? I’m just a couple of minutes away from finishing this spreadsheet.”
“Sure.” I glanced around her Spartan office. Women held most of the courthouse positions. Family photos and sunny little mottos plastered their walls and bulletin boards, forming an odd collage with the obligatory government posters.
Minerva’s office was strictly utilitarian, the domicile of a lady who knew how to work efficiently. The county commissioners were crazy about her because she ran a cheap office. High level computer skills, one permanent part-time assistant and a couple of ladies who pitched in during busy times. The whole county teems with computer nerds as bankers love to see farmers adopt management software.
Due to Minerva’s expertise and the sheer volume of her specialized entries, I often depended on her to do a search. Margaret Atkinson said Minerva managed to wheedle the latest and greatest technology out of the county budget because of her willingness to act as a kind of mini-trainer for other departments.
I owned my office computer personally, of course, as well as the Nikon camera I used and all of the other electronic equipment. What the county commissioners furnished me was light and heat and a hard time.
“Done,” Minerva said.
“I need to know the marriage dates of two couples,” I said. “Old, old marriages. Does your information go back to year 1890?”
Clogs clattered on the marble stairs before she had a chance to answer. Judy St. John came through the door. “Hi, Lottie. Inez said she saw you heading up here. She told me all about your moonlighting too.”
“Moonlighting?” Minerva asked.
“You mean you haven’t heard? I thought everyone in town knew. Lottie’s our newest deputy sheriff. Our own Annie Oakley.”
My mouth quirked into a self-conscious smile. Somehow, seeing myself through their eyes, it couldn’t have seemed more bizarre than if someone had announced my intention to become a rock star. Half the town would die laughing.
“So whatcha up to?” Judy tried to peer at the papers I was holding, but I shielded them with my hand.
“The old Swenson murder, actually,” I mumbled.
“So this information you’re after now, is it official business? As a deputy?” Minerva asked, her voice suddenly stiff.
“Of course not,” I said. “Well, maybe in a way. I wanted to see if I can find some new information for Sam Abbott.”
“Doesn’t make any difference why you want it, I guess,” Minerva said. “It’s all public record, and you’re entitled to see it. Your reasons are really nobody’s business. Just give me a minute.”
She typed in the maiden name of Herman’s mother and his father’s name, retrieved the date of that couple’s marriage and then did the same for Emily and Rebecca Champlin’s parents. Both marriages were scandal-free, taking place well before the birth of children.
Minerva handed me my printout and I walked downstairs with Judy. My problem child. Obviously, she had meant it literally when she’d said she was going to help me.
“I’ve been going through some of Mom’s things, and I came across a note written less than six weeks ago.”
“How do you know that?”
“It was written on the back on an envelope. I’m going by the postmark. It’s a list of things that don’t make sense, but Fiona’s name is on it.”
“Okay, Judy, but things have changed now. Changed a lot.”
“Changed how?”
“I’m a deputy now,” I said sternly. “An officer of the law. New rules.” I inhaled deeply. “What I mean to say is, you can’t help, can’t ask questions. Can’t nothing.”
She stopped midway down the stairs. “But I took off work, Lottie. For two whole weeks. And it didn’t set well with my boss.”
“Judy, this is not my rule. Not my call. I’m under strict standards for confidentiality, and until the new wears off of me being a deputy, half the town is going to be watching every move I make.”
I’m embarrassed by persons who ca
n’t hide their feelings just a little. Tears quivered in her sensitive blue eyes. “I want to help, Lottie. Help find the person who murdered my mother.”
Chapter Fifteen
We rounded the corner of the staircase and I stopped dead. The door to my office was open. I knew I had locked up. My key was in my pocket. I peered through the door. There sat William. His hands rested on his bony knees, and he skewered me with his eyes.
“Knocked. No answer. Knew no one was manning the fort,” he said sharply. “Called Margaret. She came down and let me in. She called around for you. We couldn’t imagine where you’d gone. Then we heard about your new job, and we figured you was gallavanting around sheriffing. She like to had a fit, of course, because you weren’t here working on the books. Sam Abbott said you was looking into old murders. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out which one. Sounds important. Murder. Got a nice ring to it. Old murders. But your job is here. You had this one first. Looks bad to have this place closed in the middle of the day. Looks bad. Is bad. No doubt about it.”
“Well, I’m back now, and I intend to put this job first. You needn’t trouble yourself with ‘manning the fort’ any longer.”
I looked pointedly at the growing pile of cedar shavings at his feet. He stood, and I marched over to the whisk broom and dust pan I had hanging on a nail on the back wall. He tugged at the front of his old fedora.
“No trouble,” he said. “Part of my duties as a member of the board of directors. Old word, duty. Don’t hear it much nowadays.”
“I’ve heard the word before, William. I know what it means. For your information, this is only the third time I can remember when this place has been closed in the middle of the day. Three times! We’re open year in, year out. If I’m not here, I always have a volunteer here. I wasn’t gone over twenty minutes.” I stopped myself before I added that for this faithfulness I was paid a paltry, laughable eight dollars an hour and that was only so the county could have matching funds from the state.
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