by Steve Thayer
Andrea Labore got up and fixed herself a drink. She poured brandy into a Diet Coke and zapped it in the microwave. She returned to the couch. Her apartment was something of a fluffy pigpen. It was too hot. Her hands were dry. Her plants were wilting. She popped one of the pills and chased it with the brandy. She swallowed a diet pill. Vitamin pills followed. She tightened the bathrobe around her shrinking figure. The Christmas Eve blizzard raged outside her window. But Andrea ignored the sinister weather and returned to watching the snow on her television set. The wind-driven snow was still coming down. Waves of the drifting white stuff rolled through the ravine. Across the way a tree snapped in two and toppled in slow motion. Snow blanketed his lap. His face was stone red. Glistening icicles dangled from his eyebrows. His teeth were chattering. He couldn’t stop the shakes. Les Angelbeck ached for a cigarette, but they too were locked in the car. Then the car’s engine died. A half-hour later the headlights died. The specter of death took flight overhead. Another victim of the Calendar Killer.
It wasn’t the ghost of his father that haunted him this Christmas Eve. It was those seven women circling overhead. What did they feel when their time was up? Did they know they were going to die? Did they see a face? Did they cry out for their mothers? Their fathers? Did you really know the name, Princess? Only one person knew all of the answers. It was this night a year ago the killer struck on Como Lake. Might even be out there tonight in search of a winter kill. Never had the Minnesota police captain felt so helpless.
The elderly and smokers are the most susceptible to the snow and the cold. Any man who knows the weather knows that. Les Angelbeck knew the weather. He wanted to finish his career as the cop who had collared the Calendar Killer. He wanted to see capital punishment restored and justice done. But he was a detective, a man of cold reasoning and hard logic. He wasted precious little time on fantasy. There would be no cars passing by. Travel was impossible. He would finish his career a crippled old man in a crippling snowstorm. The elderly take the slow road to the grave. All things considered, hypothermia wasn’t a bad way to go. It was good enough for Daddy. The family curse.
Resigned to his icy fate, the freezing policeman began to pray. The peace that passes all understanding snowed over him. The pain stopped. His hands and feet went numb. His swollen chest settled down. His face went flush, actually felt warm. Les Angelbeck felt himself dozing off, believing in his heart he would never wake up.
In the end it was just like they said it would be. The whistling wind took on a joyful harmony. He was sure he could hear children singing Christmas carols. Everything was white and beautiful. Then he saw it—a bright light at the end of a tunnel. He still couldn’t move, couldn’t go toward the light, but it didn’t matter, the light was coming toward him. It was a shiny blue light, and it descended like a savior through the swirling clouds. As it floated closer, he saw an angel below the light— beautiful orange angel, with giant wings the color of the sunset. Closer still, he could see that the angel was carrying the blue light. This messenger from heaven was swooping down on him, as if to wrap him in its giant wings and take him away. He was ready to fly. Seemed a good day for it. But the angel suddenly stopped, the giant orange wings hovering over him. The blue light twirled in circles.
Then the strangest thing happened. The most mortal of beings stepped out of the clouds and bent over his face. He was wearing a ski mask. “Are you okay, mister?”
“I know you.” Instinctively the barely alive captain tried to reach for his badge, but his brittle bones wouldn’t bend. “I’m a police captain,” he muttered.
The snowplow driver chuckled, a bit concerned. “I don’t think Old Man Winter is impressed with your rank. I’m going to put you in the cab. It’s nice and warm there.”
Angelbeck’s chest heaved back to life. He spat out a loud, hacking cough, only to have it thrown in his face by the unrelenting blizzard. “El Niño,” he stammered. “El Niño.”
The savior who descended from a snowplow—or maybe heaven had sent him—put his arms around the suffering policeman. “I think we’d better get you to a hospital.”
The Hangover
Several times during the fitful night Andrea Labore opened her eyes to total darkness. She felt sick and delirious and fell back to sleep.
When she finally woke for good she thought it was a dream. She found herself in a strange bed, a fourposter bed of cherry wood, colonial in style, spacious, warm, and male. The room was daytime dark. Thick brown curtains hung over the windows. The sheets she clung to were gold-striped, the blanket over them solid gold, the warm comforter over the blanket was warm shades of gold. A matching set. The dresser and chest of drawers matched the bed. A bouquet of real flowers sat atop the dresser, an oddity in the dead of winter. Thick autumn carpeting complemented the furniture. The bedroom must have cost a fortune. She knew now it wasn’t a dream.
For Andrea this was a first. Fear and shame overcame her. She was naked but for her panties. Her clothes were nowhere in sight. Someone had stripped her and put her to bed. She buried her head in the pillow and fought the urge to cry. She tried hard to remember, but her brandy-soaked memory wouldn’t take her past getting into her car.
She had spent New Year’s Eve by herself. She had nothing to celebrate. Then yesterday—or was it the day before?—the governor had called and asked to see her. At first she said no, but then she gave in to temptation. They had a terrible fight in the back of the limousine. He kept telling her how much he loved her. Somebody slapped somebody. Then she started for home, alone. Then . . . ? She was in a fog.
A man’s track suit, blue with red stripes, was laid out at the foot of the bed, like a note that said, “put it on.” Andrea crawled out of the bed and parted the curtain. The January sun off the snow stung her eyes. She dropped the curtain and turned away.
There was a half-bath in the bedroom. Andrea slipped inside and locked the door. She sat on the toilet and buried her head in her hands, but as hard as she tried, her memory would not wake up. She’d had a fight. She’d gotten drunk. She had ended up in a man’s bedroom. She had a hangover. Her hands smelled of vomit; her mouth tasted of it. Where was her car? And where was she now?
Andrea splashed water in her face and grabbed a towel. It was a fluffy, expensive towel with a royal design. A clean glass was on the sink. She rinsed her mouth. The bathroom was spotless, but something was missing. No mirror. Just a blank wall above the sink.
Back in the bedroom Andrea Labore stepped into the track suit pants and pulled the drawstrings tight. She cuffed the bottoms. Then she slipped into the top, pulling the zipper up over her bare breasts. Big letters ran across the chest. USMC. But there was no mirror in the bedroom, either. She sat on the bed in despair and glanced around the room for something that would identify the man who slept here. Nothing.
At the door she paused again. She wanted to cry. Again she swallowed the tears. She stepped into the hallway.
The noontime sun pounded home her hangover. She could hear a television. Football. She kept one hand on the wall and followed the autumn carpet to the living room, her knees weak, her stomach sick from drink, her head aching. Her eyes began to water as she stood at the end of the hall and peeked into the room. Suddenly she had never felt so good in her life, so relieved, so flat-out lucky. The Lone Ranger on his best day never met a woman happier to see a man in a mask.
“Good morning,” he said without looking at her. “Or is it afternoon?”
Andrea glanced at the big, fat hands on the grandfather clock in front of her. A quarter past noon. “Hi,” she said. She slinked over to the couch where he was sitting and sat at the other end, her legs tucked beneath her, her hands between her knees.
Rick Beanblossom kept his eyes on the TV set, his hands behind his head. He was dressed in jeans and a purple Minnesota Vikings jersey, number 10. His legs were outstretched and crossed. Thick white socks covered his feet. The king at home in his castle. They were high in the sky, and out the patio window was
a breathtaking view of Lake Calhoun and the city of Minneapolis.
This room of the condominium was even better than the bedroom— not really a bachelor’s pad, more permanent, a man’s home, a life he had built for himself inside a concrete cliff over a lake. The eloquent phantom. It was not a television set he was watching, it was an entertainment center, equal to anything at the station. The furniture was early American. But there were oddities—a shiny new bicycle next to the grandfather clock. A rare collection of Shakespeare stacked over an IBM computer. Paintings on the wall ranged from French impressionist to Minneapolis avant-garde. Stylish as it was, the place was in desperate need of a woman’s touch—some lighter colors, perhaps.
Andrea waited for him to say something, but his eyes remained on the television. She wondered how often he removed his mask at home. Would he take it off for her should she ever ask? Despite the mask, she could read every bitter line on his disapproving face. “Who’s playing?” she asked.
He sat motionless and didn’t answer.
“Is it the Vikings?” She knew nothing about football and cared even less. “Do you see any purple?” he growled.
Andrea smiled inside and tried to figure out who was who. After a few more minutes of watching she gave it a try. “Is it the Packers and the Washington Bears?”
“No, it’s the Packers and the Washington Redskins. It’s the playoffs.” “And you’re for the Packers?”
“Shut up.”
They watched the Packers’ quarterback smothered by Redskins. Rick Bean blossom threw up his hands in frustration.
She had heard jokes in the sports department about his zealous loyalty to Minnesota teams. “Why are you for the Packers? Why not the Vikings?”
“Because the Vikings are out of the playoffs. Are you questioning my loyalty? My father was from Minnesota. My grandfather and great-grandfather were from Minnesota. There were Beanblossoms fighting in the Civil War from Minnesota. Don’t ever question my loyalty. It’s in my blood.”
Andrea wanted to smile. He sounded like a football fool. “Is it that purple blood they joke about in sports?”
Again he fell silent. Between the Vikings being out of the playoffs, the Packers getting killed, and her behavior, she could see he was growing more agitated
by the minute.
“I went out to get drunk,” Andrea confessed.
“Well, you succeeded. Golden Valley police found you passed out behind the wheel of your car in the parking lot of a pancake house. They took you to the detox center. I’ve got a source down there. He called me at three o’clock this morning.”
“Is there anywhere you don’t have a source?”
“Very few places, lucky for you.”
“Did you put me to bed?”
“Don’t flatter yourself. You were anything but sexy last night.” “Where are my clothes?”
“You threw up all over them. I was going to soak them in cold water until I remembered whose they were. So I stuffed them in a Hefty bag and hefted them
down the trash chute. Give you an excuse to go shopping.”
“Me go shopping?” She tossed off an ironic laugh. “This place looks like it won the Good Housekeeping seal. What do you do, study those pictures in Better
Homes and Gardens?”
“Having seen your newsroom desk, I can imagine what your apartment looks like. Is that where you two do it, or are you still sneaking in and out of the mansion?” The Marine got her that time. Andrea Labore thought the better her career got, the more screwed up her life became. That tear finally escaped her eye and ran down her cheek. She wiped it away with a loud sniff. “I’m going to stop seeing him,” she said. “It’s over.”
The Packers’ quarterback took another sacking. Rick Beanblossom shook his head in disgust. “The Central Division was once the pride of the National Foot ball League,” he said, more to himself than Andrea. “Where have you gone, Fran Tarkenton?”
“Who’s Fran Torkelson?” Andrea choked out.
The masked man finally broke away from the game. He looked over at the sad but stunning face beside him. Her plastic perfection was melting all over his expensive couch. Rick patted his lap. “Come here, puppy dog.”
Andrea curled up and laid her confused and aching head in his lap. Rick Beanblossom draped an arm over her shoulder. And they spent the afternoon like
that. No murders. No politics. Just watching a football game in that vast wasteland called television.
The Penalty
Rick Beanblossom stood alone on the top step of the State Capitol Building looking out at the ghostly white city of St. Paul. March is the snowiest month of the year, and this March was living up to its reputation. Through the tumbling snowflakes, the newsman could see the magnificent cathedral on the hill across the way, a standing reminder to lawmakers of their moral obligations.
The Calendar Killer knew how to kill women, but did the state know how to kill a man—or maybe a woman? Rick Beanblossom came to the capitol on this snowy afternoon to find out. School buses lined the avenue at the foot of the stairs. News vans, numbered like billiard balls, were parked on the sidewalk. The parkland at the foot of the capitol was so white it stung the producer’s eyes. He breathed the cold, crispy air and brushed the flakes from the top of his mask. It really was a winter wonderland. But now this wonderland was teeming with outrage and vengeance. The monster who murdered with the seasons had yet to record a winter kill. In the real world, under the blanket of white, people were scared and mad. But politicians don’t live in the real world. Their world was in this building. Rick turned his back to the bright white city and walked under the marble arches and through the bronze doors.
It was a homosexual from England who put an end to capital punishment in Minnesota. His name was William Williams, a twenty-seven-year-old steamfitter who had immigrated to America. By all accounts he was a mean, ugly bastard. Williams and sixteen-year-old Johnny Keller became lovers and traveled about the northland looking for work. But Johnny tired of the travel, and tired of Williams, and returned to his mother’s home in St. Paul. Williams soon followed.
On the night of April 12, 1905, Williams went to Johnny’s home. Johnny’s mother angrily sent him away. Williams returned after midnight with a gun. He was drunk and enraged. First he shot Johnny Keller’s mother in the back; then he shot Johnny twice in the head as he slept in bed. Williams reported the killings himself but denied he had done the shooting. The jury didn’t believe him. They found him guilty of first-degree murder. The judge sentenced William Williams to hang by the neck until he was dead. At the time of sentencing the judge couldn’t know how long that was going take.
William Williams’s last meal was prepared by the sheriff ’s wife. He was given a shave and a haircut. He prayed with his priest. He shook hands and said goodbye to all of his jailhouse friends. Then at the stroke of midnight on February 13, 1906, William Williams, his hands cuffed behind his back, was led from his cell at the Ramsey County Jail. He took the long walk.
They crept down the iron stairway to the sub-basement, where the scaffolding had been erected. The death chamber was cold and damp and smelled of mildew and fresh dirt. Thirty-two witnesses, mostly reporters, stood in a semicircle below the gallows. The deputies left Williams alone at the foot of the gallows steps. Without hesitation he climbed the thirteen stairs that led to the rope. The Ramsey County sheriff was waiting for him. The sheriff read the sentence. In a soft, almost inaudible voice Williams made a final statement, proclaiming his innocence right up to the end of his rope. “This is legal murder,” he said. “I am accused of killing Johnny Keller. He was the best friend I ever had, and I hope to meet him in the other world. I never had improper relations with him. I am resigned to my fate. Good-bye.”
A black hood was placed over his head. The noose went around his neck. The sheriff descended the steps to the lever.
Public executions have always been an inexact science. When the sheriff sprang the trap door, the prison
er fell through it all right, but the rope stretched eight inches, and his neck stretched four inches, and Williams’s toes hit the floor. The knot slipped behind his neck, slowly strangling him as he tiptoed about. After a few minutes of this danse macabrethe sheriff ordered deputies to mount the gallows and pull on the rope, lifting the feet off the floor. But ten minutes later Williams was still alive, still thrashing about. So the sheriff climbed back up the thirteen steps and helped pull on the rope while a deputy stood below and pulled on Williams’s feet. Williams returned the indignity by emptying his bowels: the last supper. The stench was sickening. Reporters scribbled furiously. Finally, at 12:46 A.M., fifteen minutes after he had dropped through the trap door, the Ramsey County police surgeon declared William Williams was dead. And so was the death penalty in Minnesota. Hearing Room 15 was directly beneath the Capitol’s rotunda. The room was perfectly rounded. Reporters called it the Crypt. It had a low dome-shaped ceiling supported by marble columns. Committee members, all uniformly dressed in suits of blue or gray, sat at a half-circle table of varnished oak that ran around the room. Staff members sat behind them. Television cameras and klieg lights stood behind them. Press seats lined the stone wall. The hearing room was packed. But Rick Beanblossom was more comfortable in a large crowd than he was at a small gathering. People feel safe in numbers. A man in a mask with a notebook and a pen minding his own business doesn’t seem threatening. He took a seat in the press section behind the committee.