See Also Deadline

by Larry D. Sweazy

  I arrived in Grafton six hours and fifty-six minutes after I had pulled away from my house. I was accustomed to sitting down for long periods of time, but my entire body was sore. The Studebaker was difficult to manage on the best of roads without power steering. If I wasn’t careful, my arms were going to look like Popeye’s muscles, all bulged up into a tiny anvil.

  I didn’t think finding the Grafton State School would be a problem. The address was on 6th St. West, and the school sat on a little under thirty-five hundred acres. I figured anybody in town could point me to the place if I couldn’t find it on my own. I came into Grafton on Highway 81 North. The first major intersection was with 12th Street. The State School was six blocks away.

  Grafton looked a lot like other North Dakota towns I’d been in, and the streets were named on the same kind of grid as Dickinson. I recognized a lot of the same stores, Coast to Coast Hardware, Dairy Queen, and, of course, they had a Red Owl too. I felt at home even though I didn’t know where I was.

  I decided to stop and get some lunch before heading to the school. Not knowing which café served the best food, I stopped at one called the Gamble Snack Shop. The café sat off 12th Street on Hill Avenue. Finding a parking spot was easy enough, and once I turned off the engine I sat in the Studebaker for a minute to get my bearings. I fluffed my hair, checked myself in the mirror, and gratefully put my feet on the icy ground.

  Once inside, a waitress appeared at my table almost as soon as I sat down. She had dishwater blonde hair piled upward about three inches, bound by a colorful red, blue, and yellow bandana. Her uniform was a dingy white dotted with a splotch of mustard that unintentionally matched the color in the bandana. Her name tag said Barbara, and she looked to be in her early twenties.

  “What can I get’cha?” she said, towering over me.

  I hadn’t had time to exhale, much less think about what I wanted. There was no menu to see. “Coffee would be nice,” I said.

  “Cream and sugar?” Barbara’s eyes were uninterested in anything.

  “Black is fine.”

  “Our coffee is kind of strong.”

  “I could use some strong coffee about now.”

  “Okay.” She didn’t say “Suit yourself,” but she might as well have. “Our special is the Gamble Burger and fries for a dollar twenty-five.”

  “That sounds fine,” I said. Anything would have sounded appetizing after being on the road for seven hours. I was surprised by my hunger.

  “You’re sure you don’t want to see a menu?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Okay.” Barbara hurried off, winding her way through the tables, until she disappeared behind the counter and into the kitchen. “Order up,” I heard her yell. “One special, straight on the bun.”

  I settled back into the orange vinyl chair, looked out the window, and started to relax.

  Barbara returned with my cup of coffee in the blink of an eye. “Here you go, sweetie,” she said, as she set the cup in front of me. “Your lunch ought to be ready soon. The big rush is over. Everybody has to be back to work.”

  I glanced up to the counter, and noticed some of the men wearing white orderly uniforms. They must work at the State School, or at a nearby hospital. “I’m in no hurry,” I said.

  “On your way somewhere?” Barbara lingered, and looked me over skeptically.

  “I am.”

  “I thought you might be. I’ve never seen you in here before.”

  The coffee steamed in front of me. “I’ve only been to Grafton one other time, and that was a long time ago. I was only a girl.”

  “We get a lot of out-of-towners through here,” Barbara said.

  “Are they going to the State School?” I was making an assumption, but Barbara twisted her lip, then let the reaction fall away as quickly as she could. Judgment glared at me out of her dark blue eyes.

  “That where you’re headed?”

  “Yes, to pick up some paperwork.”

  “Sure.” Barbara leaned down to me, then said, “I wouldn’t stay in that place long if I was you.”

  “Why’s that?” The question popped out of my mouth before I could stop it.

  “They do terrible things up there.” Her voice dropped to a whisper.

  I leaned up to her. “Like what?”

  Before Barbara could answer me, a bell rang. She stiffened, stood back up, and looked to the kitchen. “That’s your lunch.” She hurried off without answering my question, and I was left to wonder what kind of terrible things went on at the State School. I hadn’t even considered such a thing.

  CHAPTER 25

  A quick drive up Hill Street took me straight to my destination. Even on a bright, sunny day, the Grafton State School was drab and foreboding. The building looked more like a prison than a school to me, but I might’ve been influenced by Barbara the waitress and her whisper that terrible things happened there.

  The State School’s main building had been built in 1903, sixty-two years prior. I wondered why Grafton was chosen by the state government as the building site for the school. There was nothing much around, the land empty and rolling but flat enough to see for miles. The vistas were an empty sea that spawned an invisible and insatiable wind that nothing could stop, not even man’s considerable talents with brick and mortar. They had called the place the State Institute for the Feebleminded then. I had to wonder, too, who had come up with that name, and what exactly feebleminded encompassed? What was the criteria for admittance? I had little knowledge of such things. Sitting in the truck, looking at the twin-towered façade, a mix of Prairie School, Beaux Arts, and Classical Revival architecture, I was glad that I’d never before had reason to know about or visit the State School. I knew what I was looking at on the outside, but I knew nothing of the inside. I only knew the place existed.

  I took a deep breath, grabbed my purse, and pushed out the door of the Studebaker. The wind instantly attacked my face, causing my eyes to water up and my skin to tighten. I kept walking, seasoned to the cold, to the discomfort of January, toward the entrance of the State School. Thankfully, there was an iron rail erected on the right side of the walk. I clung to it for dear life.

  I stepped inside the building’s tall vestibule and stopped to gather myself. I wiped the moisture from the front of my coat, smoothed my hair quickly, blinked my eyes to clear them, then headed inside the huge building. Guy hadn’t given me any detailed instructions about what to do once I arrived. I assumed the report was already prepared and waiting for me.

  My nose was met with a strong institutional smell as I walked in the door. The smell was a mix of cleanliness, sourness, and stagnation. I glanced upward to the two-story peaked ceiling, then allowed my eyes to take in the cavernous foyer. The lighting was dim, facilitated by sconces on the walnut-paneled walls and a small collection of hanging florescent bulbs scattered around the large foyer. Arched doors led off in each direction from an inlaid compass on the dull hardwood floor. Dusty gray curtains stood limply at the sides of each oversized window, open to the barren view. The only human being I saw, an older woman with brittle gray, hair, sat at a desk, staring at me without any civility.

  I walked up to the woman and said, “Hello. I’m here to pick up a report for Sheriff Reinhardt of Stark County.”

  The woman’s desk was littered with papers, a couple of faded green books that looked like ledgers of some kind, and a host of pens. Most of them had chew marks on the caps.

  “I don’t know any sheriff from Stark County.” The woman eyed me like I was some kind of salesman trying to jip her out of her last quarter.

  “This is the Grafton State School isn’t it?” I said.

  An incredulous look crossed the woman’s thin bird face. “Of course, it is. Where are you from?”

  “Outside Dickinson,” I said.

  “Never been there.”

  “I’ve never been here, either. The report’s about a girl that’s gone missing at home. She was here until recently.”

 
; The expression on the old woman’s face changed instantly. Recognition replaced her previous attitude. “Oh,” she said. “You’ll need to go to admissions for that. I think they have what you’re looking for. Ask for Anke Welton. If anyone knows about your report, it’ll be her.”

  “Thank you.” I hesitated, looked to my right, then to my left, searching for a sign to point me in the right direction. “And where’s admissions?”

  The woman, who had not offered her name, jerked her head backward. “Through the green door, down the hall, left at the first chance, then three doors down on the right.”

  “Sure, okay, thanks.” This was one place I didn’t want to get lost in.

  “You betcha,” she said.

  I stood there for a second, staring at the woman. I wanted to ask her if she had known Tina Rinkerman, but I thought it best not to. There was a restrictive feeling inside the Grafton State School, like everything was all bound up on a need to know basis. Questions in places like this usually didn’t go over too well.

  “Is there something else?” the woman asked.

  I couldn’t help myself. I had a larger question to ask that wasn’t exactly about Tina. “Where are the children?”

  “The children are in the north wing, and some of the adults are in the south wing. The worst of them. The rest of them are scattered about on the compound, depending on their age and capabilities.”

  “Oh, adults live here, too?”

  The woman sighed, and stared at me. “You really don’t know? People show up here all of the time to dump children, then they never come back. This place was opened in 1903, and there are adults who have been here since they were babies. There are elderly adults, if you can imagine. Ernest Frantz is almost ninety. He’s the oldest resident, I think. Came in when the doors opened, and he was twenty-something then. Dense as a board, but the nicest man you can imagine. Got the mind of a ten-year-old boy. Everything’s a wonder.”

  “That’s a good thing. There’s adult women here, too?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Doesn’t that create problems?”

  The woman looked past me to make sure we were still alone. I could have heard a mouse tiptoe to the door, so there was really no need.

  “There used to be a law that let them take care of that,” she said in a whisper. “But they did away with those procedures three years ago. There are pills for such a thing these days. The surgery was an awful thing to go through. Not that most of them would understand any of that anyway.”

  I didn’t understand what the woman was talking about, but I wanted to learn as much as I could. Maybe it would help Guy find out what happened to Tina Rinkerman—or maybe he already knew all there was to know about this place. My confusion must have been plastered on my face.

  The woman cleared her throat, then said, “They sterilized most of the women who came here. Or the girls who would grow into women. Some of the men, too. The law was meant to prevent criminals, rapists, defectives, idiots, and the like from procreating. Been a law almost as long as this place has been here. There’s a surgery in the basement, and we have two doctors on staff all the time.”

  Defectives. I wondered if that’s what they considered Tina. A defective mongoloid. “And the state does this?” I said.

  “Did this. I said they stopped,” the woman snipped.

  “I’m sorry. I guess I never thought about such things.”

  “Well, most people don’t. Even those that drop off their children. They try to forget that they ever existed. Life’s easier that way, but something has to be done. You can’t house all sorts of feebleminded people who still have human urges and not do anything about it, now can you?”

  “I guess not.” I stared past the woman toward the green door. I wanted to get Guy’s report and get on the road home, be as far from the Grafton State School as I could. I didn’t like being there. I didn’t like it at all.

  CHAPTER 26

  The admissions office was easier to find than I thought it would be. I walked into a much smaller room than the overwhelming foyer. This room measured ten by ten at the most, with metal chairs lined up against the walls and another room, an office with the door closed, beyond that. Only one picture adorned the walls, and it was an old black-and-white print of the Grafton State School. The dull brass tag centered on the dusty frame still referred to the place as the Institute for the Feebleminded. No wonder the receptionist had used that word. It was still prevalent in peoples’ minds; they were surrounded by feebleminded defectives. Did using words like that make them feel normal? Better than? Afraid? I didn’t know for sure. I was uncomfortable, and I didn’t like those kind of words. That’s all I knew.

  A gunmetal gray desk faced the wall, and I was greeted by another woman as I entered the room. She was younger than I was by about ten years. This woman, compared to the main receptionist, looked happier, a little warmer. She wore her thick brunette hair piled upward like the waitress at the café and had gentle blue eyes and a welcoming smile.

  “May I help you?” The nameplate at the front of her desk said Mrs. Trudy Sawyer. A shiny silver wedding band on her left hand confirmed her marital status. She wore bright red fingernail polish that matched her lipstick and a heavy white Irish wool sweater with a ribbed turtle-neck. I could smell her perfume, light and airy like a summer flower garden, as I approached her. The pleasant fragrance was a fresh reprieve from the institutional odor that was intent on making a permanent home in my nostrils.

  “The receptionist said I should speak to an Anke Welton,” I said.

  Mrs. Sawyer looked past me as if she was looking for someone else, then back at me with a curious look on her face. “Do you have an admittance to make today, ma’am?”

  “Oh, no. I’m Marjorie Trumaine. I’m here to pick up a report for the sheriff of Stark County.”

  “Well, that’s good to know. I thought for a minute there you lost someone. Wouldn’t a been the first time we had a wanderer, now would it? Anke’s not in her office, but she should be back any minute. Off on an errand for one thing or another. You surprised me. We weren’t expectin’ a drop off today, but you never know. Folks have a habit of showing up without calling.”

  Mrs. Sawyer closed a magazine she’d been reading. She saw me glance at the cover and smiled. “I have to do something to pass the time, don’t you know,” she said.

  I shrugged my shoulders. There was no window, no radio playing, nothing to distract her at all. “I imagine you get lonely sitting in here all day long,” I said.

  “I sure do.” A look of relief flashed across her face. “Anke doesn’t mind that I read these Hollywood rags. She encourages me to read some books we have in the library, but they put me to sleep. Besides, I love the movies. How about you?”

  I looked at what she was reading. The magazine was a dime-store copy of Movieland and TV Time with a picture of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor on the front cover. The two of them were all dressed up in fancy clothes, looking serious at something unseen in the distance. Big bold yellow letters on a sky-blue background screamed, “Are They Responsible For This? Even Liz and Burton are shocked by Lolita!” In the bottom right hand corner, there was a smaller headline, intended to get an eager reader to buy the magazine. The tease said: “Special. Will Jackie Leave America?”

  Won’t they leave that poor woman alone? I wondered silently. Hadn’t Jackie Kennedy been through enough? I grieved with that woman, but I did not know her tragedy. I could imagine her pain. I tried to look away whenever I saw her face.

  When I didn’t answer straight away, Mrs. Sawyer asked me the same question again. “Do you like the movies?”

  “Not so much, I guess.” How could I enjoy being inside a theater without Hank? I would only focus on what I didn’t have.

  “That’s too bad. I go every Saturday. And if the picture is good, I keep goin’ back to the Strand to see it over and over again.”

  “That’s nice,” I said.

  “Oh, well
, okay then. Well, Anke won’t be long.”

  “I can wait.” All I had left to do was drive home. And that was going to happen as soon as I got the report in my hand. I wanted to have as much daylight to drive in as I could get.

  Mrs. Sawyer smiled and shoved the movie magazine under a pile of papers. “Just in case the superintendent comes by. He doesn’t like these things at all. Says they rot the mind. He might be right about that, but a girl has to dream, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes, of course.” I looked over to the closest chair, then back to Mrs. Sawyer. “I’ll have a seat to wait.”

  “I don’t have anything to offer you. If Anke were here I’d go to the cafeteria and get you some coffee, but I’m not allowed to leave anyone alone. People don’t tend to stay here long. They do their business and go.”

  I sat down in the closest chair. “Isn’t it sad?”

  “I try not to think about it,” she said. “This place isn’t so bad really. It’s not what you think.”

  “I don’t know what to think, actually. I really don’t know much about any of this. I’m here on an errand.”

  “Todd, that’s my husband, didn’t want me to take this job at first. Any of us who grew up here have heard stories, ya know, about this place, but they’re boogeyman stories that our parents told to keep us away from here, so we would stay on the straight and narrow. I have to tell you that I was a little nervous when I first came here, but it’s been okay. Anke is real patient, and she sees this job as a service to people who need her. They don’t know what to do with what’s happened to them, and she tries to help them as much as she can. Most of the kids don’t know any difference. And, then, well, Todd, he up and joined the service and now he’s off to some place overseas called Vietnam. I don’t understand what that’s all about. I wish he’d stayed here and worked on the farm with his father, but he wanted to put on the uniform, serve his country like all the men in his family before him. I guess I understand that, but I sure do miss him.”