Macabre Memories Read online

  ***

  The story appeared in the Sunday edition of the Sentinel, starting below the fold on the front page. That was a prominent place that would grab the reader’s attention or so I hoped. Well, be careful what you wish for as the saying goes because I was being bombarded with phone calls, e-mails and text messages unlike ever before. Since my name was on the byline, I took the brunt of the onslaught. I tried to slough off some to my colleagues, but they wanted nothing to do with them. They reminded me it was my story and to suck up the good with the bad. But many of the communications turned out to be bad. A number of them ran the gamut from A to Z: absurd to zany. It was just part of my job to field them.

  One lengthy letter from a reader attributed Denny’s demise to pure evil. Yes, that was what the sender asserted: evil. Not a bear, but unadulterated evil. He went on to explain his thesis. He posited that Denny’s death and other horrific events were caused by ley lines that crisscrossed the state. He then explained that ley lines were spiritual, energy lines that transmitted both good and evil spirits along with their powerful communications. Those living along the paths of the lines were most susceptible to their effects. And the evil ones accounted for the state’s history of abominations in the past. He asserted that there existed a distinct triangle of lines that pulsed evil along its route. He noted that Native American folklore contained many references to the lines and they served as mystical, magical signposts for many of the tribes.

  He suggested looking at a map of Wisconsin to prove his point. He stated that the top point of the triangle of death was in Plainfield, the home of the infamous killer, ghoul and cannibal named Ed Gein. Gein was a well known figure in Wisconsin history by not only killing two women, but keeping their body parts as trophies to adorn his house: human skin lampshades, skulls mounted atop his four poster bed, then went on to grave robbing bodies from the local cemetery to make skin facemasks and bodysuits that he wore. It seemed Ed had a major, mommy problem back in the 1950’s, among more serious mental issues, as I recalled. After he was adjudged to be insane, he was able to live out the rest of his life in relative comfort and obscurity at a state mental institution for the criminally insane.

  The letter writer claimed the east side of his purported isosceles triangle ran from Plainfield to the Milwaukee area, specifically bisecting the small cities of West Allis and Waukesha. He noted the two were only thirteen miles apart. Well, at least that much of his fantastical story was true. He stated that Waukesha was home to the two girls who attempted to kill a classmate on the orders of the Slender Man, a tall, skinny, dark and mysterious figure who first appeared online as a game character. My writer insisted that the two attackers were under the negative influences and evil powers of the malevolent ley line spirits. That was his explanation anyway. But I remained skeptical. And I certainly wasn’t ready to discard my incredulity.

  As to West Allis, the writer correctly stated that the city was home to one Jeffrey Dahmer when he lived with his maternal grandmother for awhile before moving to the west end of Milwaukee proper to continue his murders and cannibalistic indulgences. Of course, the ley lines were once again responsible for his aberrant actions. No doubt about it, at least in his mind.

  And to the next leg of his triangle, it ran due west to Madison. It was none other than the spot where Denny St. Germain had died a horrible death. It was one that I was very familiar with and one that I’d never forget. He then told me to draw a line back to Plainfield and that would create a nearly perfect triangle, a Devil’s triangle, as he called it. I did so by using an old roadmap I’d squirreled away in one of my desk drawers. Yes, it was a decent triangle, but only if you believed his story. And I didn’t believe, but I researched ley lines nonetheless. I was nothing, if not thorough. I was nothing, if not anal retentive too. Why I bothered to waste my time on such things must have something to do with my innate sense of curiosity. I guess I was cursed with the attention to detail stuff that Billy always drilled into me.

  It didn’t take much research to determine what ley lines were. There was much literature about them on the internet and elsewhere. It seemed others, in addition to my pen pal, believed in their existence. Simply put, they were alignments of places of significance in the geography or culture of an area, often including manmade structures. They were, in an older sense, spiritual and mystical alignments of land forms or so the theory went. The most famous ones were associated with Stonehenge and the Druids in England. American ley lines were connected to Native American cultures, traditions and beliefs about powerful spirits moving along the lines and interacting with humans. I found little information about evil vibes or pulses or messages of a malevolent nature being transmitted along the networks. I guess if spiritual and mystical communications of various shades and stripes could manifest themselves along the lines, then why not evil energy as well?

  I then pulled out the letter’s envelope from my wastebasket. I was curious as to the identity of the sender since the letter was unsigned. There wasn’t a name on the return address, only the words: Mendota Mental Health Institute in its upper left hand corner. It was postmarked at Madison. That hospital was the first insane asylum established in Wisconsin.

  ***

  The kooks, crazies and well meaning people often all came out of the woodwork at the same time when the paper hit the streets. I was deluged with these people contacting me at the Sentinel and telling me things I should know. Mostly, it was easy to quickly separate the wheat from the chaff or, more specifically, the nutcases from the sane, sincere readers.

  I received an e-mail from one reader suggesting that Denny had been mutilated by an alien being. He or she pointed out the strong similarity between the cattle mutilations in the western U.S. some years ago and the physical insults to Denny’s body. I didn’t see any connection and hit the delete button.

  Sometimes readers do come up with plausible theories, or more likely suggestions, to explain the inexplicable. One caller thought it possible that a lion or tiger had escaped from Circus World in Baraboo and was responsible for Denny’s death. She noted the circus was located less than twenty miles from where his body was discovered. I thanked her and immediately followed up on the lead. Baraboo had been the summer home of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus for several decades before permanently moving its operation to Sarasota, Florida. I knew at least that much about the Wisconsin Dells history and its attractions. I found that Circus World had been in business for over thirty years and one of its major acts included big cats.

  I called the main number listed for the circus and after several transfers reached its managing director, Jim Rainey, aka, Mr. Jingles, the head clown. He laughed when I asked him about missing animals. I guessed clowns do that a lot. In any case, he said all of his cats were present and accounted for and, if one went missing, the local authorities would be immediately notified. He claimed it had never happened before. As I was about to hang up, Mr. Jingles pitched me about doing a cover story about the circus. I told him I did crime and not entertainment stories, but promised to pass along his request to the responsible editor for possible follow-up. I never much liked clowns as a kid and I still don’t; especially pushy ones.

  So, after a hectic time, things started to slowly wind down to a more normal pace, as normal goes at a busy newspaper. The interest in my story had waned. After all, it was now yesterday’s news, merely paper for the bottom of the birdcage. But that lull would only last for a short while because another mutilation and death was about to happen. And this time I would be all over the case like stink on shit to put it crudely. I was still gunning for that Pulitzer.

  ***

  Gloria Rainwater was up in years to put her ninety plus years into polite perspective. She grew up on the Ojibwa Indian reservation outside of Lac du Flambeau and had only recently moved to town for health reasons. She was somewhat of a revered figure in the community; not because of her age, but because she was one of the tribe’s shamans. She, like
her kinsman, practiced an animistic form of religion as their forefathers had done from time immemorial. Truth, wisdom and the pathway to heaven were to be found in nature and all of nature was sacred in their beliefs. She was also the tribe’s medicine woman, a healer who gathered natural ingredients from the woods and fields of the reservation and turned them into potions and lotions for her many patients. While she believed in modern medicine, she didn’t turn her back on the old, proven and traditional remedies and cures of her ancestors. But she also was a healer of minds and spirits for those seeking her help. And such help was sorely needed by those suffering from chronic depression, chronic alcoholism and chronic poverty; all common, endemic problems on the Ojibwa reservation.

  Lac du Flambeau was a town of about 3,000 souls, most of them Ojibwa. It was a down-on-its-heels one with modest, clapboard houses, a nearly nonexistent downtown and a smattering of mobile homes. Its only claim to fame and income producer was The Torch Casino that employed a few tribesmen, but mostly Anglos from surrounding communities. It was an Ojibwa tribal enterprise and a big moneymaker. The Indians didn’t need to work there or elsewhere since the profits from the casino were distributed each month to members of the tribe. It was enough money to satisfy their modest lifestyles, but little more. Regardless, it seemed to meet their hardscrabble expectations that didn’t envision any hope for a better future.

  I was south of Hurley following an ongoing story about a poaching ring operating in both state and national forest preserves when I caught the call for police backup on my radio scanner. Many, smaller police forces couldn’t afford advanced, encrypted communications so I was able to easily monitor their conversations. It was something I’d done for years and it had paid dividends in the past for scooping stories that others would miss. The call came from a Vilas County Sheriff’s deputy who reported a murder, yes murder, in Lac du Flambeau and he requested immediate assistance. Murders were highly unusual in Wisconsin, except in Milwaukee and a couple of other, larger cities. My story about black bear poaching would have to wait. I thought it a good one. Poachers would sell the meat, fur and paws of the animal in the U.S., but the real money was in the gallbladder trade with the Far East. Asians would pay dearly for bear gallbladder because they believed it to be an aphrodisiac, much like ground rhino horn. It was a nasty business and federal agents from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had been called to assist in the investigation.

  I sped towards Lac du Flambeau and hoped I wouldn’t be pulled over for speeding. Luckily, I hadn’t been and arrived in the town in less than thirty minutes. It was easy to spot the scene of the crime; I simply followed the local traffic and soon arrived at Gloria Rainwater’s trailer. There were many police cars and lookie loos at her home. I parked some distance away and made my way to the crowd that had already gathered in large numbers. It was obvious that a couple of stringers were present from other news media outlets given their aggressive questioning of the baby-faced police officer manning the barrier to Gloria’s residence. He remained mute despite the onslaught of questions from the reporters. He’d been taught well by his superiors.

  It was evident from where I was standing that the storm/screen door and the metal clad entry door to the trailer had been pulled off their hinges and now lay in front of it. The body of a dog, a large Malamute, it appeared to me, was lying dead next to the discarded doors. I later learned his name was Edward and its throat had been viciously ripped from its body. He had been Gloria’s constant companion, friend and minder for the past seven years. She called him Eddie as a name of endearment and affection. But a Malamute wouldn’t give ground or quarter in protecting its turf and mistress or so I believed. It would fight to the death before that would happen. Whatever or whoever must have overpowered the dog and killed it on the spot. It had to have been tremendously powerful to do so. I snapped a few photos of the trailer and a couple of Eddie’s body before calling my editor and reporting the incident. Yes, I used the word incident, but I was already thinking crime. And yes, my mind was already drawing a nexus between the deaths of Denny St. Germain and Gloria Rainwater.

  Gloria was not a random victim of a violent crime; at least that was the quick conclusion of the cops. Someone or something had targeted her for death. But why and who or what were the questions that needed answers. The county sheriff had requested assistance from the state’s authorities, especially its forensics lab. Even Vilas County, and those surrounding it, lacked the resources to handle an incident of this magnitude by themselves. They typically dealt with highway accidents, drunk & disorderly cases and domestic violence calls. This was something well beyond their collective expertise.

  I stayed a few extra days up north trying to piece together a story, maybe, just maybe a much bigger one than simply the death of an old, Indian woman who lived alone in a trailer in the north woods, despite the horrible way she died. A neighbor had called 911 to report that “all hell was breaking loose” at Gloria’s trailer. When the first police cruiser arrived some twenty minutes later, the officer observed about a dozen people standing outside the trailer, some crying and some standing in stunned silence. The officer took one look inside and immediately called for backup. That was the call I heard on my radio scanner.

  According to the official, police report, the first responder noticed blood everywhere, pools on the floor, splatters on the kitchen cabinets and walls, along with a long blood trail down the hallway leading to Gloria’s bedroom where her body was found. And it was her body that told a gruesome tale. It had been mutilated beyond recognition. Her face had been torn or bitten off, she had been dismembered, torn limb from limb, as the report stated, and her right arm was missing. It was as if Gloria had been drawn and quartered like in medieval times. Or maybe my imagination was getting ahead of the facts as Billy might have reminded me. But the similarities between the St. Germain and Rainwater cases were obvious, at least to me. But I don’t think the local cops had yet made the connection between the two deaths. I didn’t plan to tell them since the knowledge gave me some advantage in solving the mystery first. They’d eventually make the connection, but not before I’d finish my story and publish it on the front page of the Sentinel. I envisioned follow-up stories to that one and I’d be busy for weeks. I couldn’t wait to receive my prize.

  But the similarities and connections between the two deaths didn’t stop there. I soon learned that Denny St. Germain was the great grandson of Gloria Rainwater. Oh my God! The deaths weren’t coincidental. I didn’t think so and now I had proof positive. Through my talks with the locals, I uncovered this intriguing fact. A couple of them had connected the dots between the deaths of the relatives and attributed them to an old vendetta, a blood feud between the Rainwater and Wolf clans many generations ago. The story had been handed down for many years in the manner of the tribe’s oral history. A monster was responsible in their superstitious minds. It was plain and simple to them, but certainly not to me. It was a mythical, mystical explanation, but wholly plausible to these Ojibwa. I didn’t understand, at least then. I would learn the truth much later. And it was truth, despite Billy’s claim to the contrary. You could, in fact, find truth where you least expected.

  ***

  Several of the tribe’s elders related the origin of the vendetta as handed down over the years. It was a tragic, sad story and one that continued to be played out to this day or so they claimed. In 1851, the Ojibwa fished, hunted and farmed the lands of northern Wisconsin, the upper peninsula of Michigan and the far eastern portions of what is now Minnesota. They peacefully coexisted with the relatively few white settlers in the region. On a fateful day in the late spring of that year, three, young Rainwater tribesmen came upon a twelve year old girl of the Wolf clan. Her Ojibwa name was “Water Springs” and she was a favored child of her clan for her beauty, both physical and spiritual. For reasons unknown, the three boys brutally raped her and left her for dead, but she didn’t die and was found later by a relative. The matter was reported to the trib
al council with her father demanding justice or, more specifically, retribution for the horrific crime. The council initially voted to have the boys shunned for a period of one year as punishment, but there was such an outcry from most of the tribesmen the council ordered them banished for life. That was a fate considered worse than death, but it was the one ultimately imposed on the young men by the elders.

  So, the three left the tribe to find their ways in an unfamiliar world. One, reportedly, joined the U.S. Army cavalry as a scout. The others were never heard from again. But Water Springs’ father believed that justice was not served and that his daughter’s attackers were treated too leniently by the council. In a dramatic pronouncement in front of his clan, he made a blood oath, a curse that he placed on all Rainwater descendents to avenge the terrible rape of his beloved daughter. And the curse remained in effect today or so the story was told. That was the gist of the legend and cause of the brutal murders by a monstrous, supernatural being: a Wendigo. The descendents of the Rainwater clan were now paying for the long ago sins of three of their ancestors. Even today, members of the two clans avoided each other like the plague. Each knew the history and each kept a distance from one another, even though they lived in close proximity. It was an awkward situation to say the least, but one fully understood by every Ojibwa in Lac du Flambeau.

  ***

  A Wendigo, how could that be? It couldn’t, could it? I had to suspend my disbelief to even consider such a preposterous story. What the hell was a Wendigo anyway? Here’s what Wikipedia had to say:

  In Indian folklore and mythology, a Wendigo or Windigo is a cannibal monster or evil spirit native to the northern forests of the Great Lakes Region of both the United States and Canada. The Wendigo may appear as a monster with some characteristics of a human, or as a spirit who has possessed a human being and made them become monstrous. It is historically associated with cannibalism, murder, insatiable greed and the cultural taboos against such behaviors. The legend lends its name to the disputed modern medical term Wendigo psychosis, which is considered by psychiatrists to be a form of culture-bound syndrome with symptoms such as an intense craving for human flesh and a fear of becoming a cannibal. In some indigenous communities, environmental destruction and insatiable greed are also seen as a manifestation of the psychosis.