See Also Deadline

by Larry D. Sweazy

  Tina’s physical description was detailed in the report all the way down to the reason for her admission, which was noted as severe and irreversible retardation. The paper also said the child suffered from being a mongoloid at birth. There is no known cure or treatment for the condition. The form was signed by Toren Rinkerman, Tina’s father, and countersigned by Anke Welton.

  My hands shook as I read, and I was cold, but not all of the movement was caused by the weather. I realized what a horrible day that must have been for Toren, leaving his daughter that far away from home. I couldn’t imagine such a thing. The thought of leaving a child behind made me sick to my stomach. Tina was almost a year and a half old when the Rinkermans gave her up. There was no mention on the form of Adaline, Tina’s mother and Toren’s wife. I guessed Toren’s signature was sufficient because he was a man. Did Adaline have a say? Did she agree to the admission? I didn’t know, and there was no way I would ever ask her.

  There was more information on the form. Tina was discharged a year later in 1953, only to be readmitted three months later. The same again in 1960. Discharged in June and readmitted in October. The last date of discharge was 01/07/1965. There was no reason given for the discharges or re-admittances. I could only imagine that Toren and Adaline had tried to take Tina home to have a normal life. The last time she was discharged she went missing a few days later. I hoped more than anything that Guy had found her alive in my absence, but I had to wonder what would happen to Tina if that were the case? Would Toren send her back to Grafton? Anke Welton wouldn’t have a problem with the girl’s return.

  Tina Rinkerman was fourteen years old and had spent most all of her life institutionalized at the Grafton State School. But that didn’t mean she was forgotten. Or unwanted. I didn’t know the Rinkermans well enough to be aware of their trials and tribulations with Tina, but they had tried their best to deal with the situation they’d found themselves in as far as I could tell. Maybe Hank knew more about their lives. He’d dealt with Toren for a lot of years, but he never said anything to me about the welder and his family life, nothing about Tina that I could remember. Still, there was no information in this report that gave me any clue why Tina had gone missing, or whether the murder of Nils Jacobsen had anything to do with Tina. Joey was the link between the two of them.

  I put that paper back in the envelope and reached over to adjust the flashlight. The beam of light remained strong, but I had to strain to see every line of the report clearly.

  The next paper was a mimeographed copy of Tina’s birth certificate, confirming everything in the admission report. Nothing new there, either. Toren and Adaline were listed as her parents, and there was no mention of Tina’s condition. The official document looked the same as everyone else’s birth certificate.

  The next paper looked newer and was titled “Procedure Completion Report.” Tina’s name was written on a line after the word “patient.” The handwriting was different from the admissions report, and was dated 03/12/1961.

  The procedure marked was “sterilization.” I had to squint to make sure I’d read that correctly. I read on:

  In rules set forth by the North Dakota State Board of Control, and in accordance with the 1927 Sterilization Law, the board has deemed that Tina R. Rinkerman is a female of no mental capacity to understand or engage in acts related to procreation. Subject has been determined to be either mentally insufficient, insane, a confirmed criminal, a defective, rapist, or an idiot. All categories fall within the boundaries of the current law and the procedure is approved to be executed on this date, March 12, 1961, with authorization given by the county and state in which the Grafton State School resides.

  Defective was underlined, given as the reason for sterilization. A man’s signature, Horace A. Findley, was signed at the bottom, and a notary seal was pressed into the paper. I ran my gloved hand over the seal, then flipped the paper over. Everything was official, endorsed. There was a notes section on the back of the paper with the same handwriting that was on the front, stating that “the Subject” had experienced her first documented event of menstruation on 02/01/1961. The report went on to say: “Mongoloids develop early, and the board recommends that the procedure be completed as soon as possible.”

  I sighed and remembered my conversation with the unpleasant woman who’d staffed the reception desk. She had mentioned sterilization, that the surgery was once an approved procedure, but that now the state used other means of birth control, not eugenic sterilization. The law was changed in 1962. I wondered if the doctors and the powers-that-be knew that there was a deadline coming and had wanted to make sure that Tina was sterilized before the procedure wasn’t allowed.

  I had mixed emotions about what I had read. In the old way of thinking, sterilization made sense, but the categories seemed broad. Idiots. Defectives. Horrible words. Who was to decide what was what? The thought of a sterilization procedure made me uncomfortable. I didn’t see what this report had to do with Tina’s disappearance, but I had to assume that Guy had asked for all of the documentation the school had.

  I couldn’t help but wonder, Did Tina understand what had happened to her, and why? Did she have a say in what happened to her own body? I didn’t think Tina had had any say at all about the procedure, and that made me sad and angry.

  The next piece of paper was a copy of Tina’s visitation record. This document had the most entries, the most information. There were at least sixty lines of small print, noting each visit and naming the person who visited. Over and over, the record stated that Tina was visited by her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Toren Rinkerman. There was no mention of any of her brothers, only Toren and his wife. I found that odd, and I was sad again.

  I scanned the paper once more, found nothing, then picked up the last piece of paper that had come out of the envelope. The paper was fresh, bore the State School letterhead, and was handwritten by Anke Welton.

  Dear Sheriff Reinhardt,

  The enclosed reports contain all of the information that you asked for. I sincerely hope that they will assist you in your quest to find Tina. As to Tina’s state of mind, up until a week before she left us this last time, Tina was well adjusted and had long ago accepted that the State School was her home. She had a special relationship with Joey Jacobsen (see separate report). They were friends for most of their lives. Tina became extremely agitated when we told her that Joey would be leaving for short periods of time on a trial basis to live outside of the school. Tina requested to go home, and everyone concerned thought that a separation from Joey would be for the best while we waited for the legal permissions to be completed for Joey’s departure. That decision has turned out to be a terrible mistake. I pray that you find Tina alive and well. Please bring her back here so I can keep her safe.

  Sincerely,

  Anke Welton

  Admissions Supervisor

  I put the letter down and shivered deeply.

  The cold had invaded my bones and my heart. Had I missed something? Joey was going to live outside of the school, at least part time, but where was he going to go? Anke hadn’t said a word to me about that. Maybe Joey’s trial basis leave had been canceled because of Tina’s disappearance. The answer, I assumed, was in the other report.

  I put everything from Tina’s report back into the envelope and pressed the tape as hard as I could. There was no way I could hide the fact that I’d broken the seal.

  I took a deep breath before opening the other envelope, then looked out the window. The snow still fell, still swirled around the truck in the wind. If the weather didn’t settle down soon, the Studebaker was going to be buried. I was going to have to go outside before long and clear out the tailpipe so I could start the truck’s engine.

  I opened the other envelope as carefully as I had the first. As Anke’s letter had implied, this report was about Joey. She revealed his existence to Guy in the letter. That was a weight off my shoulders. And, like me, she felt that Joey was related to Guy’s inquiry, to the crime or crimes t
hat had taken place in Dickinson.

  Joey’s admission report was almost identical to Tina’s. His birthdate, 12/22/1950, and his admission date, 12/24/1950, were stated exactly like her document. The form was signed by Nils Jacobsen and Anke Welton. There was no mention of the mother.

  I closed my eyes and imagined Nils as a young man driving on a snowy day, on Christmas Eve, to deposit his defective son in the school. Who was with him? The mother? His parents? Or was he alone? I doubted that I would ever know. His day must have been as horrible as Toren’s.

  The papers in Joey’s report were in the same order as Tina’s. The next record was a mimeographed copy of Joey’s birth certificate. My eyes scanned past the father and fell directly on the name of Joey’s mother. I gasped out loud and had to look at the name three times to make sure I understood what I was seeing.

  The name on the birth certificate was Darlys Gertrude Gustaffson.

  “Darlys,” I whispered. “Oh, Darlys.”

  The mimeographed document slipped out of my gloves.

  I let the birth certificate drift to the floor as I laid my head against the gun rack and closed my eyes. I didn’t have to work too hard to remember Darlys Gustaffson before she became Darlys Oddsdatter. Tall, blonde, of Swedish descent, and related to most all of the Gustaffsons in Stark County, including Lloyd, the extension agent who had introduced me to the USDA indexing course, and his nephew Lester, who worked for Jaeger Knudsen.

  As a child and teenager, Darlys had glowed brighter than the sun. Everybody noticed her when she walked into a room. Not only men, everybody, old and young. She was stunningly beautiful. She walked like a timid doe, though, and there were times when Darlys was aloof, unapproachable. We weren’t girlfriends. Darlys was a town girl, a cheerleader–glee-club–student-council kind of girl. She was busy with a packed social calendar even back then. I was a bookworm and a farm girl. Our paths didn’t cross much. I didn’t know much about Darlys, didn’t keep track of her love life, the boys she dated.

  I worked my way through my memory of high school as slowly and methodically as I could to connect Nils and Darlys. There was nowhere in my memory where I ever saw them together, holding hands at school, on a date at the church ice cream social, nothing.

  Was she with Nils when he gave up Joey? Did they drive to the State School together?

  I wasn’t sure that I would ever know, but my thoughts turned to Nils.

  My memories of Nils were at the Red Owl when he was a sacker—a long way from manager—and on the basketball court, playing ball, even though he really didn’t have the height for the game. Maybe, I thought, if I couldn’t connect those two then Guy Reinhardt could. He had been the king of basketball in the county at that time. He hadn’t gone to the same school as Nils, but I bet they knew each other. I bet they did.

  Darlys, I whispered again. Poor Darlys. All of these years, I thought she couldn’t have children. I thought we were in the same club, barren, on the outside of expectations to give the world a child. A woman was considered a failure if she couldn’t have a child. We were joined by a social and physical inability to contribute, to share in the joy of watching our children become part of the community. At least I thought we were. Now I knew different. Darlys had given birth to a mongoloid boy, out of wedlock, with one of the most well-known and nicest boys in town. That must have been a hard secret to keep—for them both.

  I suddenly remembered a conversation I’d had with Lene Harstaad. I asked her if there were any other girls in town like Tina Rinkerman, and Lene’s face had flushed red. And then she’d said, “Why would you ask me such a thing, Marjorie?” Now I had to wonder if Lene knew about Joey.

  Someone had to know. I was stunned by the discovery of Darlys’s name, but somehow, as I let the information digest, I wasn’t surprised. Darlys wasn’t the first girl in our town to get pregnant as a teenager, and she wasn’t going to be the last. Maybe an out-of-wedlock child was a scandalous mark her family had a hard time bearing. I could see that, but people had sex. Young people who didn’t understand the consequences let their desires get the best of them. I had. I wasn’t a prude. I grew up on a farm and learned about sex and death at an early age. I understood that a moment of passion could change a person’s life, like stepping in a gopher hole had changed Hank’s life. Things happened. Bad things. Out of our control. The recipe for making Joey and Tina got all mixed up. No one was at fault, not everybody got a perfect child. I didn’t blame God; I blamed nature.

  Darlys had moved on with her life, married Henrik Oddsdatter, the local dentist, and had lived happily ever after. I’d thought so, anyway. Darlys lived in a beautiful house, wore fancy clothes from the best shops in Bismarck and Dickinson, and drove a pretty red car. I thought Darlys had everything a woman could want. Everything but a child. That’s what I’d thought. But I was wrong. I didn’t know anything about Darlys Oddsdatter at all. Not really. Not anymore than she knew about me.

  Life, I thought, had moved on for Nils as well. He’d married Anna, become the manager at the Red Owl, had three healthy, happy children, and maybe another one on the way. He had something Darlys could not and would not ever have. Was there a motive for murder mixed up in their old relationship? And if there was, did that mean Darlys had killed Nils? Was she a suspect?

  “Yes,” I said aloud. “I think she might be.”

  CHAPTER 32

  I couldn’t take the cold any longer. I didn’t care if someone was out there waiting for me or not. I bundled myself up, grabbed the flashlight and four flares from behind the seat, sucked in a deep breath, and shouldered my way out the door. I left the .22 behind. I only had so many hands, and they were full. If I didn’t get warm soon I was going to die.

  The wind and snow attacked me immediately, pummeling my face with small, frozen crystals, as hard and sharp as sewing needles. I looked away from the wind and pulled my hood over my head. I almost dropped the flares on the ground. They would have disappeared in the snow. I’d be lost for sure if that happened.

  I hung onto the truck and edged my way to the rear end, fighting the wind. I felt vulnerable without the rifle, but I didn’t let my fear stop me as I made my way to the tailpipe.

  The exhaust was clogged. If I’d run the truck for a long time without the window down, I could have killed myself with the fumes. After clearing the snow from the tailpipe, I stood up with my back to the wind and lit the first flare. A steady red flame sputtered forth, bringing an eerie glow to the blanket of white in the darkness. Suddenly the entire world around me looked aglow with fire.

  I threw the eight-inch candle-shaped flare as hard as I could, straight back from the tailgate. Then I turned to the right of the truck and threw another flare, followed by a throw of another one to the left side.

  I edged myself back up to the driver-side door and threw another bright red flare straight out from the hood. I threw a flare in each direction in hopes that I’d hit the road, that someone would see one of them somewhere.

  I slid back into the Studebaker and turned the ignition key, hoping that the engine would start. Thankfully the truck started. I could relax. All I had to do was wait for the engine to warm up and start blowing hot air out of the vents. My plan had worked. I didn’t need the rifle. I locked the door anyway.

  Satisfied that everything was going to be all right, I drank some water and ate a Hershey bar. I decided that I would turn on the radio and try to find a weather report, or at least a strong station. The weather would play sooner or later.

  I found a radio station that only crackled a little bit. They were playing orchestra music. I didn’t mind what they played and left the dial there. I wasn’t alone. That was all that mattered.

  I hadn’t lost my train of thought about Darlys. She was all I could think about past my own survival, past making sure I was going to stay warm and safe. I was still confident that I could last two or three days in the truck if I had to. “Just stay put, Marjorie,” I heard Hank say again.

  I hate
d to think of Darlys Oddsdatter as a murder suspect, but I had no choice. I needed to think back on the events surrounding Nils’s murder that I knew. Could Darlys have killed him? I knew that there was a lot of information that I didn’t have, couldn’t have. Like where was Darlys the night Nils was murdered. I hadn’t had any reason to think that she was involved in the crime until now. I figured she was at home, with her husband, where she belonged. But I didn’t know that to be the truth.

  What I didn’t know frustrated me. I angled the flashlight so I could read again, then picked up the next piece of paper in Joey’s report. Like the paper in Tina’s report, this document was a “Procedure Completion Report.” I expected to see Joey’s name, since the document was in his file, but I was wrong. Darlys’s name was on the report.

  Darlys? I whispered again. Only this time I questioned what I saw. Why . . .? I had no choice but to read on. The form was exactly the same as Tina’s, except this one was underlined in a different place:

  Subject has been determined to be either mentally insufficient, insane, a confirmed criminal, a defective, rapist, or an idiot.

  Tina was diagnosed as a defective, while Darlys was determined to be mentally insufficient. I trembled from the discovery, not from the cold.

  The paper was signed by Darlys’s father, Stefan Gustaffson.

  The procedure was approved by her own father.

  My heart raced as I let what I had found sink in.

  Darlys couldn’t have any children because she had been sterilized in 1951, not long after giving birth to Joey. All she would ever have was Joey.

  I felt so sorry for her. I couldn’t imagine such a thing. I was heartbroken for Darlys, and for Joey and Nils, too. They had carried a horrible secret all of their lives. Nils and Darlys were connected in a way that I could never have imagined.