CHAPTER FIVE

1935

Investigators generally agree that 1935 was the year the Michigan murders began. The murders usually occurred in the Mountain Ridge area, but a few occurred as far away as Marquette and Houghton. Women disappeared as far west as Green Bay, Wisconsin and as far south as Detroit, but no one was sure which of those disappearances, if any, could be connected to what was happening in the Mountain Ridge area. Some reporters and police officers attempted to make a connection, but unless the bodies were found, no connection could be made. Undoubtedly many girls were leaving broken homes as the nation struggled with economic Depression.

One killer working Michigan highways couldn’t be responsible for all those disappearances. Surely some of those girls had gone to Hollywood looking for careers in the movies, or they had just drifted until they found new lives.

Some people speculated that two or more men could have been worked together on the killings. Others felt there were copy cat killers. The list of known victims grew as bodies were found.

For those girls who just disappeared, one could only wonder what happened to them. But enough bodies were found to confirm the presence of a serial killer.

Lucille Bachaek, age 17, raped and strangled in a wooded area behind Almasy House, January 7, 1937.

Mabel Vinson, 22, raped and strangled, February 1, 1935.

Jeninne Orbison, 19, raped and strangled, March 11, 1935.

The police looked at young men on the edge of survival as possible suspects. Among these young men, Jack Brianka headed the sheriff’s list. Finally after the murder of Orbison, he was arrested and questioned, but he was let go when it was discovered that he had an unbreakable alibi.

He was playing cards with his employers, Enrico Rinaldi and his daughter Lucinda Rinaldi.

Still the police watched him.

Miles Olson, the sheriff’s son and now a deputy, was determined to link Jack with the crimes. Perhaps he had an accomplice. Perhaps his alibi was false.

Jack Brianka was one suspect neither Sheriff Leo Olson nor Deputy Miles wanted to give up.

Penny 1970 “That always used to scare me,” Audrey, one of the maids admitted. I’d be alone in one of the rooms, Jack would be here in the house, and I would just get the shivers.” We were sipping coffee in the maid’s break room at Almasy House. One of the other maids mentioned that Jack had once been a suspect.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “Jack Brianka wouldn’t hurt a puppy. He’s a great guy.”

“Did they have any other suspects?” I’m the one they ask when they want to know anything about the history of this town.

“Jeff Hollander was a suspect for awhile.”

“Who?”

“He was a priest here for awhile.”

Audrey sighed. People don’t like to hear bad things about priests or ministers. But the old timers here know Hollander’s reputation was anything but pristine.

“Well, they got the killer now,” Audrey said. “I’ll be glad when he gets his ass fried down there in Louisiana. How many people did he kill down there. One or two. Here the count must be close to a hundred.”

“Yeah I said. “If he had been arrested here in Michigan, the most he could get is life imprison.”

1935 Prohibition had ended. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in the White House. Despite Roosevelt’s best efforts the Depression lingered.

Yvonne Brianka pulled her green second-hand coat closer around her shoulders. It kept out most of the March coldness. She walked home from the picture show with only the street lights for company. Claudette Colbert had been brilliant as Cleopatra. Vonnie loved picture shows and she saw each new show as it appeared. Usually she went to the movies with her brother Jack, but not that night. He had warned her to be careful. Stay to the brightly lit streets where there were more people. There was safety in numbers.

Jack always worried about her when she went to the show alone. He had told her to ask Rita, the clerk at the grocery store or that new girl who cleaned for the Rinaldi offices.

Jack had a mysterious new girl friend. Vonnie was curious. Who could it be? Why keep it a secret?

In just a few short months, Lisa would be here, and they could go to the picture show together. Jack would not have to worry about her. She knew they were lucky. Many people, both men and women, were jobless. But thanks to the Rinaldis, the Briankas would all have jobs.

Jack chauffeured and gardened; Vonnie cooked and cleaned. There was much to do, and Lucinda, who was the Enrico Rinaldi’s only daughter had wanted to hire an extra maid for some time. Vonnie had talked her into waiting until Lisa could take the job. That would be soon. Lisa could leave the orphanage when she turned 16., and then she would have a job with the Rinaldis too.

Vonnie felt sorry for the homeless men and women. She had seen many hoboes with their torn clothes and hopeless eyes. With Lucinda’s permission, she fed the hoboes hearty vegetables and chicken soups and stews. She remembered that Jack had lived for awhile as a hobo, and she always sent a little prayer along with these men.

Vonnie was not churchy, but she did believe there was a god and maybe a goddess too. She honored whatever deities existed by feeding the homeless men, and also the wildlife around the Rinaldi mansion.

She prayed every night for the unemployed and also for President and Mrs. Roosevelt. They were doing their best to get the country out of the Depression.

The movie replayed in her mind as she walked.

There was only one woman she knew who was prettier than Claudette Colbert and that was her employer, Lucinda Rinaldi. Lucinda would make a great Cleopatra. She had dark eyes and black hair like the Egyptian queen. Lucinda really should be a movie star except that girls with as much money as Lucinda had, didn’t work.

Lucinda was engaged to marry state senator Brad Davies. Some people were saying Brad was headed for Washington D.C. and that Lucinda might be first lady some day. Vonnie wondered what it would be like to work at the White House and to be the personal maid to the First Lady.

Vonnie ignored Jack’s instructions to stay on well-lit streets and around people she knew. She was tired, having been up since dawn cooking, cleaning and even sewing.

She took a short cut through a few acres of woods. On one end was Almasy House, still occupied by the spooky old lady who had hovered over Vonnie, Jack and Lisa after their mother’s death. At the other end was the Rinaldi mansion.

Vonnie wasn’t paying attention. A twig cracked. She turned to look behind her. The trees stood like tall ghosts. Something she could not see was moving in the woods with her. She thought it must be an animal. Perhaps a deer. Vonnie knew a killer stalked women in Upper Michigan. Some people thought he operated out of Mountain Ridge.

A body had been found in these woods. Why hadn’t she remembered that before she started trekking through the trees? She walked on. Something rustled among the trees. Definitely an animal, she thought.

It must be an animal. Why hadn’t she taken a stick? Perhaps it was just a dog or a cat out night hunting. She walked a little faster. Then she ran.

Something moved behind her. She tripped; stumbled; righted herself and started to run again. Something grabbed her coat. It felt like a claw as it pulled her backward and then and then pushed her down. Something heavy lay on top of her.

A heavy glove went into her mouth. “Don’t make a sound.”

Then another voice. “It’s the Jew bitch.” There were two of them. She tried to struggle.

His weight was too heavy on her. She could not move. She whimpered and when she did he pressed harder pinning her head to the cold ground. Pine needles prickled against her skin. “Quiet.” one of the voices said.

She couldn’t see the men, but she smelled the stale scent of cigarettes and beer.

Something went around her mouth. He’s going to kill me she thought. The gag tightened. She couldn’t cry out. She felt her clothes being torn off in the cold night. She shivered, and tried to scream. They were going to kill her.

Rough hands clawed at her bare legs. She felt something like a sword being thrust inside her and then thrust again and again. Her body shook like a rag doll.

He grunted as he pushed inside her.

She tried to ignore the pain.

And after the first one raped her, the second one took his turn on top of her. She felt the dirt of the forest and the dirt of their bodies as they rubbed against her. She felt their fluids between her legs. She knew she was crying, but she couldn’t stand these men on her. She wanted them to kill her so it would be over with. She even wanted to kill them.

When they were finished. One of them ordered her to lie still.

She heard her own sobs and waited for death. They didn’t kill her, and she didn’t look up to see who they were. Her tears blinded her. The night was still as dark as the dirt she stared at?

“Ever tell anyone and you’re dead. Your brother and your sister are dead,” one of them said. “I could kill you and then go get Lisa. Think I can’t get her at that orphanage?”

She lay on the ground stunned for a long time.

Had they left? The moments dragged on and she heard nothing. They must have left. She pulled the gag from her mouth.

Finally she was able to get up and find her clothing or most of it in the dark. Still stunned and cold, she limped toward the Rinaldi house. She let herself in the back door and locked it. But she still did not feel safe.

Whoever those men were, they must never come inside.

She poured hot water, washed herself and prayed she would never have to endure that again. She shivered. The hardest part was knowing that whoever attacked her, knew her, knew she had a brother and a sister, knew they were vulnerable.

At least they weren’t the killers that everyone was talking about. She was still alive.

Her body felt cold and sore and exposed. She put on a flannel nightgown and wrapped herself in blankets. She drank warm milk. Still she felt cold. After awhile she got up and washed her body again. She couldn’t get the smell of those men off her. She couldn’t forget how much it hurt. It still hurt.

A rooster crowed somewhere to the south. Some families, even wealthy ones, kept their own chickens, so they could have fresh eggs. The rooster served as her alarm clock most mornings, but on this morning, she was awake.

The nightmare of the night before had not left her. And each time she tried to move she felt the bruises. Even her face was swollen.

She wanted to wash herself again. The filth of those men clung to her. Their smell clung to her, and it made her want to vomit.

Her legs ached, but her feet were uninjured. She forced her feet into a pair low heals that she had purchased from the Sears catalog.

Lucinda Rinaldi woke up and stretched. As she combed her hair and put on a simple cotton dress, she planned her day. It was too early for planting the garden, but she had a garden plan. She would show it to Vonnie this morning after breakfast.

Spring meant spring cleaning. She was anxious to get to it.

How she liked the Briankas, Jack and Vonnie, who were hard workers and great people. She couldn’t wait to meet the younger sister, Lisa.

Lucinda knew there were those who hated the Briankas, but she also knew about prejudice, and it would never be part of her hiring decisions. Vonnie and that good looking brother of hers were not religious, but their dad had been Jewish.

Some people did not like Jewish people. The Brianka family had even been attacked by the Klan when the siblings were young. People said their dad abandoned them after that.

She herself had never been the target of the Ku Klux Klan, but she knew she could be. She and her dad were Negroes, though they passed as White.

She shuttered to think about what some people of her race endured in the South and could endure even here in Mountain Ridge where the Klan mostly drank cheap beer and met at Almasy House in what they thought was secret.

Those men were idiots and she wished that her dad would fire every one of them.

Soon she would be the wife of a very important man. The wedding was planned and it would take place in Lansing in just a few months.

It was time to start acting like a young lady. Still she bounced down the stairs, through the parlor and dining room and into the kitchen where the smell of fresh coffee greeted her.

What stopped her was the sight of Vonnie leaning against the kitchen table. Vonnie’s hair was uncombed and her face was swollen; bruises formed beneath her right eye. Vonnie had more bruises on her wrist. The long-sleeved dress hid the rest of her arms.

“What happened?” Lucinda asked. She touched Vonnie’s sleeve, but Vonnie pulled it back as if in pain.

“I fell down the stairs.”

“We have to get you to a doctor.”

“No.”

“Where did you fall?”

Vonnie knew she had been caught in a lie. The house had a cellar, but a box lift connected the kitchen to the pantry and the lower stories to the upstairs. What reason would she have had to go upstairs or downstairs? She had not been upstairs this morning. Lucinda would know that. She would suspect. And Vonnie had never lied to her employer before.

“I just fell,” she amended her story. “Outside on the cement.”

“Sit down. I’ll get the car and take you to Dr. Tracie.”

“No. No doctor.”

“You’re hurt. Now you are going to the doctor. That is an order.”

Vonnie noticed where her arm was bleeding. “I’m ruining your dress.”

“It’s your dress; I gave it to you, and I will get you another one. I saw you mooning over some of those dresses in the Sears catalog.”

“I’m all right,” Vonnie insisted. But she wasn’t.

Lucinda had Jack bring the car around, but she herself drove Vonnie to the doctor. Vonnie did not want her brother fussing over her now.

The examination at Doc Tracie’ office was superficial. He looked at the bruises and gave her some ointments. He bandaged the deeper cuts. “That must have been some fall,” he said. “Is there something else you need to tell me?”

She shook her head no.

“It looks like someone beat the daylights out of you.” Then he called Lucinda in from the waiting room. “She needs to rest for a few days,” he said.

“She will.” Lucinda promised.

Vonnie remembered the spring cleaning. “There’s so much work to do.”

Lucinda had already decided it was time to get that younger sister - what was her name? Lisa - from that orphanage. She knew from talking to Jack that Lisa was not happy, and that she needed to get away.

Enrico sat at his desk going over the records of iron ore. How much had been shipped? How much sat on the docks at Marquette? How much lay beneath the earth’s surface yet? The answers lay on the papers strewn across his desk.

His assistant came in to tell him the sheriff was waiting to see him.

It was the yearly invitation to join the Klan. Enrico always found excuses not to join. How he dreaded these meetings and disliked the tall blond sheriff who wore his gun like a gunfighter in those western movies and Zane Grey novels. Enrico believed he would be shot if he revealed the truth about his race.

“Show him in,” Enrico said after a moment. He had already put off this meeting twice by making excuses about why he couldn’t see the sheriff.

Olson walked quickly into the office, his right hand extended. Enrico tried not to look at it with distaste.

“Mr. Rinaldi, thank you for seeing me. I know you’re a busy man.”

Enrico nodded.

“We’re doing our annual membership drive. The Ku Klux Klan is very vigilant as you can probably guess.”

“I think I told you last year and the year before I have no interest in joining the Klan.”

“That is a very unusual sentiment for a White man. And here you are from the South.”

“Is there anything else I can help you with, Sheriff?”

“Perhaps a donation. We keep the scumbags out. There ain’t never been a Nigger living in this here town.”

Enrico almost laughed at that statement. “I am afraid my expenses are tight. I have a payroll to meet.”

“Of course. If you should change your mind, you just call me now.”

Enrico nodded and then he watched the sheriff leave. Should he have made a donation? He didn’t want Leo Olson to be suspicious.

The Indian woman made a poultice of plantain and placed it on Vonnie’s shoulder. As she worked, she talked about her daughter, Dancing Bear, the smartest girl at the school. “She’ll be going to college,” the old lady bragged. “She takes all the hard courses that are mostly for boys. Chemistry. Physics. Algebra. And she has to help those White boys.”

Vonnie smiled and let the old woman fuss over her. She had not met the woman’s daughter, but was sure she would like her.

When the woman disappeared into the living room to begin cleaning, Lucinda sat down beside Vonnie. “Tell me what really happened?”

Vonnie sighed and stared at her hands.

Lucinda waited.

“There were two men. I think there were two. They tackled me; they hit me.”

“Where?”

“In the woods behind Almasy House.”

“What were you doing there?”

“I took a shortcut.”

“Did they do anything else to you?”

Vonnie shut her eyes tight trying to keep the tears back. She nodded.

Lucinda held her and let her cry for awhile.

“I’m calling the sheriff, “ she said.

“No,” Vonnie grabbed her employer and held tight to Lucinda’s arm. She ignored the pain her movement caused. “I’m so ashamed.”

“What happened wasn’t your fault.”

“I should have stayed on the path. I shouldn’t have taken the shortcut. I should have been paying more attention.”

“Hush.”

“You mustn’t tell anyone. If Jack finds out, he’ll want to kill someone.”

TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK

CHAPTER FOUR, "BROKEN HOMES UNKEPT GARDENS"

Rose paced the foyer at Almasy House. Martha had been her maid. She and the children could stay here; eventually they would understand that it was best that John was gone. He would be tarred and feathered and taken out of town. Perhaps they would not even use the tar or feathers. He would be warned not to come back. Martha would mourn for awhile, but she would get over it. Martha had been such a good Catholic girl.

The sheriff entered carrying a small bundle wrapped in what Rose recognized as one of Martha’s ragged blankets, a cast off from the boarding house.

“Quickly,” he shouted, nodding toward the the fireplace. “Get a fire going. I need more blankets now.” Some of the lady prostitutes had been sitting around resting, reading or waiting for customers. They hurried to do the sheriff’s bidding. “Quickly,” he repeated.

He laid the bundle on the couch. Rose recognized the child. It was Lisa, Martha’s youngest. “She’s a baby,” one of the prostitute ladies said.

“The doctor’s on his way,” Leo pulled his badge from his pocket and placed it back on his chest.

“Where’s her mother? Why didn’t you leave her with her mother?” Rose sat across from the child while the sheriff rubbed the child’s cold hands and tried to bring some warmth into them. Soon the doctor rushed into the room.

Rose pulled the sheriff away from the others. “What went wrong?” she asked.

1970 Miles

When Miles arrived back in town, a deputy drove him to the courthouse. “How’s the prisoner?” Miles asked.

“Got her in isolation. She don’t say nothing. Don’t eat.”

“I’ll talk to doc about force feeding.”

“You sure we should be holdin’ her. She should be in a hospital.”

“Shut up and watch the road,” Miles snapped. “I ain’t letting this prisoner go.”

1925

Rose assured her husband Louis that things would be taken care of. “What do you mean by things?” Louis asked. “Martha’s funeral will be here. Father Hollander has agreed to officiate even though she certainly wasn’t a Catholic in the last years of her life. He will also petition Rome to allow her soul back into the Church. Our lord is good and will forgive her for her sins.”

“Will He forgive us?” Louis asked.

“We have done nothing wrong,” Rose insisted.

“What happened to John? Where is he?”

“He left town.” It was a lie that she was not yet ready to give up. She never would. She certainly wouldn’t tell her husband the truth. It was bad enough he knew Martha was dead.

“John didn’t stay for his wife’s funeral?” Louis knew his wife was keeping a lot of the story to herself.

“She wasn’t his wife. Not in the eyes of the Church.”

“I don’t give a damn for the eyes of the church. What happened to John?”

“I told you.”

“He wouldn’t leave her. He wouldn’t leave his children.”

“He was persuaded.”

“Rose, the little girl was almost killed. How did that happen?”

She didn’t answer. But when she turned to face him, she saw that he was cleaning his gun. She hadn’t seen that gun in years. What had made him bring it out? For the first time, she was afraid of what her husband might know and of what he might do.

He placed the gun on the table beside him. “What happens to Martha’s children?” he asked.

“Father Hollander will take them to the orphanage. They’ll get a good Christian upbringing. I made a large donation.” She hurried from the room, afraid he would use that gun on her.

There was one more thing she needed to arrange. Rose had to make sure the children never talked. She was sure the two older ones knew nothing. From reports they had been hiding in the cellar when their mother’s body was found. Most likely they had not seen what happened to their father.

John’s body had been moved and hidden before the children were taken from the house. At least that stupid sheriff had gotten that part right.

But what about the child called Lisa? What had she seen? What did she know?

Louis had always considered himself a good man. He loved his wife and he had sometimes even been proud of her as she ran the boarding house and made it much more profitable than he would have done on his own. He didn’t like that she allowed ladies of the evening to stay on the top floor and to use the house to entertain their customers. He didn’t like the illegal booze that Rose ran even though the profits were more than he ever imagined.

Her vast illegal enterprises scared him as did the men who came from Detroit and Chicago. He knew they were gangsters.

But now he thought about Martha’s death. He thought about the Klan whom he disliked even though he knew they met in the house every Thursday and sometimes maybe even more often. He thought about John’ Brianka’s disappearance. He should have stopped his wife before he let it all end like this. His Smith and Wesson was cleaned and fully loaded.

His confession had been written and mailed to Father Hollander along with instructions to bring in the authorities for a full investigation of John’s so-called disappearance. Had he left his last letter at the house, Rose would have found it and destroyed it. Louis trusted the new priest, Father Hollander. So he had gotten the letter out of the house and into a mail box.

He returned to his room.

Across the hall, a music box played. He didn’t recognize the tune, but it tickled the air like cowbells. He took a deep breath, placed the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

Penny 1970

The room where Louis Almasy committed suicide is now the maid’s break room. Dark brown smudges mark the walls. Some people say it’s his blood, but the room has been painted, wall papered, stripped and painted again since that time. The floor is varnished every year. No trace of Louis Almasy remains or if it does, it’s covered by layers of paint and whitewash.

The old timer I had just interviewed for an oral history had not mentioned what happened here in this town so long ago. No one now admits to having belonged to the Klan. No one admits riding with them that night.

There’s a gorgeous portrait of Rose Almasy in the foyer. Some people say she came from a rich European family; some say she was royalty. Some say she was a gypsy fortune teller when she met Louis Almasy. He bought the house for her to run as a boarding house. It kept getting bigger and bigger as she added rooms. She had grown up near a large castle. She wanted the house to look like a castle. It resembles instead a poorly constructed old house. Its unusualness makes it a tourist attraction.

Rose added a restaurant. Miners had to eat and Rose managed to serve them breakfast, lunch and supper at reasonable prices. The kitchen she added to the house is still there, but today all the appliances are state of the art. We even have a chef.

Rose opened a tavern and kept it running even during Prohibition. She had tunnels built all around the house and some connected to the iron mines. She ran booze in and out of the house through those tunnels and associated with known gangsters from Detroit, Chicago and New York.

The town loves her now that she’s been dead for over thirty years.

Prohibition ended when Franklin Roosevelt became president. The mines that once supported this town are all closed now.

All of this has little or nothing to do with Lisa Mentor or her arrest.

Okay, it has a lot to do with Lisa’s arrest. I am just trying to figure out how to connect some of the dots.

When I went to pour myself a cup of coffee, Jack Brianka came in and sat at the break table.

“Lisa is asking for you,” he told me.

“Are they allowing her visitors?”

“Family. Vonnie and I got in. Danni got in, she helped Dr. Tracie do the medical evaluation.”

“Is that necessary? Everyone in town knows she’s crazy.”

“What do you think?” Jack asked me.

I didn’t answer. I really didn’t know what I think.

Almasy House 1925

Lisa was a strange child. That first night that her mother’s body lay in the parlor for view, she had crawled in the casket with her dead mother. The ladies who used the parlor to entertain gentlemen even when there was a funeral had pulled the child out of the casket and had sat with her until Rose came to take the child upstairs.

After that, Rose locked the three children in a room. She brought them their meals, took them down to see their mother’s body and gave them bathroom breaks.

One night Rose had the two older children taken downstairs to dinner. She sat down beside the small child. Lisa at first tried to pull away. She would not look at the fancy lady. “I want my daddy,” she said.

Rose sighed. Perhaps the child did not remember or perhaps she had not even seen what happened.

“You know your daddy went away,”

No answer. Lisa stared at the floor.

“Your daddy got on a train and he went away. He went to San Francisco and when he gets to San Francisco, he will get on a big boat and go all the way to China. He wasn’t a good daddy.”

Lisa continued to stare at the floor.

“Lisa, if you think you saw anything else happen to your daddy, you are wrong. Do you understand?”

The child made no answer. Instead she jumped off the sofa and tried to flee. But Rose caught her and pulled her back. Lisa could offer little more resistance than a kitten.

“You don’t want people to think you’re a liar, now do you?” Rose wasn’t even sure that the child heard her. She would get Father Hollander and the nuns at the orphanage to work with Lisa. “I think you had a very bad dream the night your mother died. But remember what really happened. Your mother went to heaven and your daddy went to China.”

She repeated it. “Your mother went to heaven, and your daddy went to China.”

Rose felt she should hug the child. But she couldn’t bring herself to get that close to a dirty little Jew. It was enough that she had to clutch the child to keep her from running away.

The little girl’s brown eyes held some emotion. Fear? Anger? Hatred? Sorrow? Rose thought she saw all that in this little one. She had done her Christian duty. Martha’s bastards would go the orphanage and be raised as good Catholics. Jesus would be proud of her charity.

She had just finished explaining things to the child when she heard the gunshot that killed her husband.

Penny 1970

The tunnels under Almasy House wound this way and that and back again. They had been built back when Rose Almasy and her husband owned the house. Rose hired foreign laborers to build the tunnels. When they were finished those laborers were transported back to their native land.

One rumor said she murdered them and their bodies are still there in one of the tunnels.

Another rumor says she has a fortune in gold and jewels buried some place in one of the tunnels. Those tunnels are barricaded off now. They are too dangerous for recreational fortune hunters.

Emil Mynter a mining engineer, explored some and maybe all of the tunnels. There were probably a few others who know their way around down there.

The sheriff, Miles Olson has gone into the tunnels to rescue people who got lost. He found some of them usually with help from Emil Mynter. I wondered how Miles found his way around down there. He was never a miner or a mining engineer like Mynter. But then I ask too many questions.

Thinking of the sheriff brought me back to the present and Lisa’s problems. After I left Vonnie’s office where Jack, Vonnie and I discussed Lisa’s case, I tried to avoid talking to anyone. Reporters knew I spent time with Vonnie and Jack. They must be wondering about my connection to the case. I hurried through the atrium.

I wasn’t fast enough. “Excuse me,” one of the reporters called. “I understand you’re an amateur historian here.”

“Not really.” Usually my title is called local snoop.

“I was wondering about Jeff Hollander.”

“What about him?” I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Not much about him here at Almasy house or at the museum.”

“Why should there be?” It was my turn to ask a question.

“Just wondering.”

“Mrs. Smith can help you find some articles in the old newspapers. We have microfilm readers.” Mary Mynter Smith, daughter of the old mining engineer, was the president of the historical society and my boss.

The reporter grinned, “Like I said, I was just asking.”

As he walked away I thought, you’ll never know the truth. It’s too well hidden.

1925

The town was not quite sure what to make of Father Thomas Hollander. He was as young as the century, just 25 years old. He was movie star handsome, and according to some of the young women in town who were infatuated by his blue eyes and blond hair, he was even handsomer than Francis X. Bushman whom he somewhat resembled. Church attendance was up among the young girls in town and also among their mothers.

There had been a rush on confessions among the men lately. A miner had been lynched. The men in confession spoke of watching, horrified. None confessed to the actual crime. Who had put the rope around the miner’s neck? Who forced him up the ladder? Who kicked the ladder away? If Hollander was shocked, he did not show it.

He had been too young to serve in the Great War, but an older brother had served and suffered a kind of exhaustion. He knew his brother had seen death, and had even participated in the battles. Things like that broke some men. These miners seemed remorseful, but not broken.

For his part, Hollander did not know what to make of Mountain Ridge, a town unlike any other town he had ever lived in. It consisted of the very wealthy like the summer vacationers who came north to enjoy the lakes and trees. Usually they had cottages outside of town. Some wealthy mine owners had houses within the town. Enrico Rinaldi was building a new home. If only he were Catholic. Not that Rinaldi wasn’t generous. He had donated a thousand dollars to the church charity fund.

Rose Almasy ran a very successful boarding house and restaurant. She also ran booze. Everyone in town knew where they could get a drink.

Rose was a good Catholic who attended mass every morning.

Hollander often took his meals at Almasy House, but didn’t know if he had ever met Rose’s husband, who always stayed in the background like a potted plant. The Almasys made monthly and yearly donations to the church that were very generous.

A few parishioners had speculated that Rose and her husband would leave all their possessions to the church when they died. As far as Jeff Hollander knew, they had no one else to leave their possessions to. He had heard gossip about a daughter, but he could gather few details. He knew her first name, and year of christening, but beyond that the girl was a mystery. Was she still living? Where? Had she ever married? Would she visit Mountain Ridge some day? Hollander tried to get information on this daughter, but had been unsuccessful. Some people said they didn’t know; a few shook their heads and said it was a sad thing. When he pressed for details, all anyone told him was that the girl was gone.

Hollander was unprepared for the events of January 1925.

First there was that young wife, Martha who had died of a heart attack. She had left the Catholic faith and married a Jewish man. Hollander explained that a Christian burial was out of the question, but after Rose Almasy pushed an envelope stuffed with money into his hands, he agreed to conduct a funeral ceremony at Almasy House where the body lay in state. Burial was possible, he decided accepting a second envelop of money. The body could be entered near the edge of the churchyard. Surprisingly none of the towns people objected to this unchristian woman lying among them.

On the contrary, many women had thanked him, saying Martha was a good Christian woman who had been led astray by the Jew. Look how quickly he had left town and abandoned those children. Shameful.

Of course, Hollander knew the truth from the confessions he heard. Martha’s husband had been lynched.

Rose made another large donation and he agreed to take the children to the Catholic orphanage.

Martha had not been such a pretty woman. He had seen pictures of her. He had looked upon her body lying in the casket. The townspeople loved her and hated the man she chose over them and over the true religion. Was it more than John’s religion that damned him in the eye of this pious town? He was a foreigner. Some people hated foreigners. John Brianka had had been lynched. There was no doubt in his mind that each man present at the killing was guilty of the murder.

Hollander had given those men who came to him absolution. He would have done the same for Rose, had she asked for it. She seldom came to confession. But she must have known what happened that night.

No one seemed to know what had happened to the body of John Brianka. One of the men said he thought one of Rose’s henchmen “took care of it.” She had connections with gangsters; at least that is what some people said. Another penitent said the sheriff had removed the body.

Then Louis, Rose’s husband, committed suicide. Rose wanted him buried in the churchyard, and she wanted a church funeral. Hollander explained that suicides like non believers should not be buried in consecrated ground, but Rose had shoved yet another envelope of money at him. Another funeral was held at Almasy House and then Louis went in the ground beside Martha at the edge of the churchyard.

Again no one complained.

Then came the letter. It was Louis’ suicide note sent through the mail just before he shot himself.

It told of how Rose had loved Martha. How upset she had been when Martha had married. It told why Rose carried a vendetta against John, and what she had gained or rather lost by causing John’s death.

Rose hadn’t meant for John to die. She just wanted him ridden out of town. Rose had indirectly caused Martha’s death too.

If the letter were sent to the authorities, Rose might even go to prison. Indeed Louis expected the priest to contact the authorities, and present evidence.

But, Hollander decided it was a confession and confidential. He would keep Rose’s secrets. He would keep the town’s secrets.

Father Jeffrey Hollander began taking all of his meals at Almasy House. He proved a fascinating conversationalist. Soon he was invited upstairs where he ate in Rose’s private quarters. She was 57 and he was in his mid to late 20’s. But he hungered for her money and decided he would do whatever was necessary to help the poor widow who was now alone.

His charm would do more than help the church. It would also make him a rich man.

TO BE CONTINUED…

CHAPTER THREE: BROKEN HOMES UNKEPT GARDENS

Wednesday January 7, 1925

Martha Brianka had put her three children to bed and then sat down to darn one of her husband’s shirts. John wore a full beard, a plaid shirt and miner’s woolen pants. He smoked his pipe as he sat by the fire reading the Torah. It was a strange book, written in a strange language, not even Russian like her husband.

She knew her husband had been well-educated, before the attack on his village had killed his parents and his first wife. He had immigrated to America, drank heavily, but had stopped drinking even before Prohibition became the law of the land. Then he started working as a laborer. He had drifted north, boarded at Almasy House and there he had met her. She had been working as a maid there in that huge house. Rose, the innkeeper, had fired Martha for marrying the “dirty Jew.”

Many of her friends had also deserted her when she married a Jewish man, but she loved John; she loved his gentle laugh and his warmth. She had never been popular with the men folk, so when this big bear of a man showed her attention, she had been grateful. Now they had three children.

As she sat sewing, she watched him, and she saw in his face much of the beauty that lived in the faces of her children, John Jr. who had already adopted the nickname of Jack, Yvonne whom they called Vonnie, and little Lisa.

When John looked up, from his book, he noticed her watching him and he smiled across the small area between them. He suggested that Lisa start school when classes resumed after the holidays. Lisa their youngest was just five years old and terrified of the dark, of strange noises, and of people outside the family. Lisa would hide under the bed to avoid having to go out with her mother and once they left the house, she would try to hide behind her mother’s skirts.

“She’s so shy,” Martha said.

“She’ll get over it.”

They were silent for awhile. Then he asked, “What did Doc say?”

She hadn’t gone. She had promised him she would consult the doctor about her chest pains. “I just didn’t have the time,” she said. “The children keep me so busy, and whatever would I do with Lisa.”

Not only had she not gone to see the doctor, she had not told her husband that her chest pains were getting much worse. It seemed like almost anything set them off, including thinking about sending little Lisa to school.

She resumed her sewing.

He sighed. “Make sure you get down to that doctor’s office tomorrow.”

“We can’t afford doctor bills, you know that,” she reminded him.

“We can’t lose you.” He said it simply, but she knew how much he hurt. His first wife had perished in a pogrom in the old country. While he loved Martha and their children, she knew he still hurt for those he had lost. “I’ll go tomorrow,” She said. “Doc is always in on Thursdays.”

Little Lisa the youngest of their three children wandered in.

“You’re supposed to be in bed,” her father told her.

“I had a bad dream.”

He took her onto his lap and gently rocked her.

Martha didn’t go to church anymore. She wasn’t welcome since she had married a Jew, but today had been Epiphany. She missed the holiday. When she was growing up, her mother had made an Epiphany cake with a dried bean baked inside. Whoever got the piece with the dried bean, got to be king for a day and wear the paper crown her mother cut and sewed each year.

She should have made such a cake and a crown for her own children, but butter, eggs, and milk were precious. Their cow had not been giving much milk lately, and John had killed the last of the laying hens for Sunday’s supper.

She decided that she would not go to the doctor. Money was needed for other more important things.

Almasy House, 1925

The clock struck midnight at Almasy House, the biggest boarding house on the Menominee Range. Epiphany was over. So were the free drinks.

Rose Almasy moved among the drinking men; she signaled the bartender with a nod of her head. “Gentlemen please,” she said. “It is time to begin the business of tonight.”

Her guests were Klansmen. They met at her house every Thursday. This was Wednesday or it had been until a few minutes ago. The drinks usually weren’t free. Rose had a job for the men to do this night.

The bartender started gathering up glasses. Several of the half dozen men in the room groaned. “Just one more. How about it, Rose?”

Rose smiled at the miners. They followed her with their eyes as she moved to the corner table where Sheriff Leo Olson and his ten-year old son, Miles, sat. “Come back and report as soon as you’re finished,” she told the sheriff.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Leo gave her an exaggerated mock salute.

“You’re drunk.”

“Wasn’t that the plan?”

She needed him sober. That way there would be less chance of anything going wrong. “Nobody is going to get hurt. Nobody,” she emphasized.

“You’re going to owe me more than free drinks.”

A maid came in with a pile of cut up sheets and pillow cases. The men drifted over and started putting them on. Rose had removed any embroidery or marks that could trace the bedding to Almasy House. These were old sheets used in the cheap rooms. It would cost her some to replace them, but tonight’s work was important.

“Can I come along?” ten-year old, Miles asked.

“Best you go home to bed,“ his father said.

“You can stay here and have a root beer with me,” Rose said to the child. “I wanna go.” Miles said. His father gave him a warning stare, and the son backed down. “I’ll go home,” he decided.

“See that you do. We don’t need any spectators. If I catch you in the woods…”

“Don’t worry, Pa. I’m going home.”

Over in the corner another boy sat. He too had been brought to Almasy House with his dad. He was new to town and the kids called him Sonny, but his name was Norman Cain. A similar conversation took place between this boy and his dad. The two boys left together.

Rose thought their exit was too fast. Would they spy on the men? That shouldn’t matter because no one was going to get hurt. The Klansmen were just going to have some innocent fun. The two little boys knew what was going to happen. So what if they watched.

Leo, the sheriff, took off his badge.

Enrico Rinaldi had been reading his newspaper in the foyer. He set it down and studied the color design in this part of Almasy House. His own new home was being built on five acres of land across the woods from Almasy House. Rinaldi, owned the Virginia City mine, named after a town in Nevada where he had owned several silver mines.

The Nevada mines had mostly played out, but here in Upper Michigan iron ore flowed. His few mining investments had earned him millions during the Great War. He used his profits to invest in other mining properties.

His little daughter who slept upstairs would be a very wealthy heiress. He was anxious for their house to be finished, and he planned to move into their new mansion as soon as possible. Almasy House gave him the shivers. He knew that creepy old woman who ran the place also ran girls and booze. Rinaldi himself had nothing against a glass of wine or even something stronger now and then, but he didn’t approve of breaking the law. Rose had business partnerships with several notorious gangsters.

Rose scared him. She had a menacing quality like a disease, invisible but fatal. At least his home would be ready soon. He could move out of Almasy House.

Enrico saw his reflection in the mirror across from the lobby. He was 36 years old, a first generation millionaire. He had light copper colored skin, curly black hair that he wore short and straightened to a wave instead of a tight curl. His double breasted suit came out of the best New York tailor shop.

He closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them, he was startled to see Klansmen in sheets and pillowcases rushing toward him. For one second he thought they were there to lynch him.

They flowed past him like so many ghosts. Rose Almasy walked behind them.

“What the hell…” he said. “A bunch of drunk fools wearing bed sheets. Mrs. Almasy, I must tell you…”

“Please call me Rose.” Seeing his discomfort, she hurried to reassure him. “I am so sorry. I should have insisted they use the back entrance.”

“Looks like they’re ready to lynch someone. Is there a Negro family here in town? We should warn them?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“Where’s the sheriff?”

“Don’t worry; he’s keeping an eye on them.” She said truthfully.

“I’m from the South. I’ve seen Klansmen before. Those men were drunk and they’re up to no good.” He tried not to shudder at the memory of the Klansmen he had known in Louisiana. He had not expected them to be active this far north. “Rose, if I see another hooded fool, my daughter and I are going to find another place to stay. I don’t care if we have to live in a stable.”

“I’ll see they don’t you disturb you again. I promise.” After tonight she would have no more use of the Klan, and she hoped neither would anyone else in town.

She didn’t know much about Negroes. Would she have tossed out the wealthy and elegant Enrico Rinaldi if she knew he was a Negro instead of Italian as he and his daughter pretended to be? They had money and Rose liked money. She would surely find some way to work with the Rinaldis no matter what they proved to be.

Rose accompanied the wealthy mine owner as he made his way up the stairs to the rooms he shared with his eight year old daughter, Lucinda.

“We’re not a hooligan town,” she assured him.

Martha checked all three children. They slept like the babies they still were. Jack was just nine years old, and sweet like his little sisters. She smiled as she left them to their dreams.

Miles had never intended to go right home. Neither had Sonny. They walked down the sidewalk for awhile, but then turned north and entered the woods behind Rose Almasy’s house. Some people called it Central Park, although it was not central. The wooded area was practically at the edge of town.

On the other side of the woods, a new house was being built by Enrico Rinaldi, one of the mine owners. There were more homes on the east side. That is where the action would take place tonight.

Sonny followed Miles. The two boys crouched in the shadows and waited. The moon was dark, but their eyes adjusted quickly. Then they heard the wagon tumbling along. They smelled the tar and saw the torches.

Little Lisa was the first in her family to awaken. She saw the lights moving outside. Her five year old legs were too small to reach the floor, so she slid from the bed. Silently she moved toward the window. Just as she raised herself up over the small dresser to look outside, a hooded figure appeared.

She screamed and ran blindly from the room.

Miles and Sonny watched the men as they a rolled the tub of hot burning tar from the wagon. Torches illuminated the night. The boys crept deeper into the shadows. If their fathers saw them, they would each get a beating.

The men seemed more drunken than they had seemed in Rose’s drawing room when they were drinking the free whiskey. Sometimes the whiskey took awhile to take effect.

Miles heard his dad remind them that they were supposed to scare the family, and no was supposed to get hurt.

That was when everyone heard the first scream. Miles did not at first know who was screaming, but the sound went on and on.

John awoke to his daughter’s screams. Torch lights paraded outside his bedroom window and hooded figures hurrying past. “Get the children downstairs. Hide them,” he told Martha.

In his mind, he was back in Russia at the time when he had lost his first wife. Martha opened the door to the children’s bedroom and felt them rush past her. “Run to the cellar, now. Hide.” She ran after them and as her terror increased, she saw just the two children. “Where’s Lisa?” She whirled around. “John,” she screamed her husband’s name.

Outside a dog barked.

Lisa ran in circles. She stumbled against the doorway or was it a wall. White sheeted men rushed past her. They were in the house.

She hit the outside door and it opened. She found herself outside and running. She slipped on the snow or the ice. She fell. She crawled. Someone stepped on her fingers.

White sheets swirled around her. One of the men grabbed her, but then something knocked him over and Lisa hit the ground again. The dog barked. “Sheppie,“ Lisa cried, recognizing the neighbor’s dog. A gun barked and she saw the dog fall down. “Sheppie. Sheppie.”

Lisa tried to crawl, but she was kicked and her hands were stepped on again. She saw her daddy dragged from the house. He was knocked down, and kicked.

“Daddy.”

Inside the house, Martha ran up and down the hallway. Dark figures rushed past her. She knew Lisa was outside, and she had to reach her baby, but her chest hurt. She stumbled into the kitchen; she couldn’t catch her breath. She fell and tried to get up. The pain stabbed her. She collapsed against the stove and lost consciousness.

“Jew.”

“Filthy scum.”

“Tarring’s too good for ‘em.”

The two boys watched and listened.

It was about then that Miles saw the rope. One of the hooded men swung it over a tree branch. John had been stripped to the waist for the tarring; but they hadn’t tarred him.

John was now being dragged toward the tree.”

“Just scare ‘em,” Miles heard his father say.

Leo was trying to maintain order. He was, after all, the sheriff.

“They ain’t gonna just scare him,” Sonny said. “This is gonna get good.”

A ladder appeared from somewhere.

“Daddy,” Lisa screamed as she tried to crawl to her father.

“Get the child away,” John begged. “Don’t let her see.”

Those were his last words.

Miles watched like he would watch a movie. But unlike the movies he was used to watching this had sound. After awhile, he even forgot Sonny crouching there beside him.

First the men were very drunk and then and then…they sobered up; the men were shocked by what they themselves had done.

The little girl sobbed, and her sobs seemed louder and certainly more disturbing than her screams had been. Miles didn’t think it, but somehow her sobbing added to his own excitement. After awhile he looked at the little girl, much younger than he himself was. Make her stop crying, he thought.

Her thin nightgown could not protect her from the cold. Her hands were red and bloody from being stepped on. She had been kicked. The men had been so drunk and so intent on what they were doing, they had not even noticed her.

A man stumbled over the little girl.

Someone kicked and spit on the body of the dying dog, and then a shot rang through the air to stop the animal’s whimpering.

“Do something with the kid. Shut her up,” a man said.

Some of the men got sick and lost their booze-soaked suppers in the bushes. Miles and Sonny had to move back further, so they would not be discovered. Miles climbed a tree to be more out of the way, but then he could better see the hanged man with his red blotched face in the torch lights and his purple tongue sticking out, and his neck in a grotesque position.

So this is what a hanging looked like. Miles had seen drawings of hangings in books about the wild west. He now understood the excitement of the townspeople at those events.

Someone climbed up and cut the dead man down.

Miles watched as his father tore off his robe and hood and hurried among the Klansmen. “We were supposed to scare him. You stupid bastards.” He had never seen his dad so mad. “We were to get him out of town, nothing more.”

The hooded men mumbled; they whispered.

“He married a Christian lady.”

“How many more Jew bastards was he gonna make.”

“God needed this done.”

“God had nothing to do with what happened tonight,” Miles’ father sputtered out the words. “And when Rose…. When she finds out what we did, she’ll have us all strung up.”

Would she really? Miles wondered if even the mighty Rose Almasy could get so many of the townsmen killed.

Then the men turned their attention to the sidewalk. Someone new had arrived.

It was one of the servants from Almasy House.

“Rose sent me to get Martha and the children.”

“The children,” Miles heard his dad say.

The men all seemed to turn at once and look at little Lisa who was now still. The child was dirty and bloody and her eyes were the eyes of someone much older. She looked like a cartoon drawing of a child lying there beside a snowbank with torches casting an unearthly light around her.

I gotta go,” Sonny whispered. “I can’t tell if my dad is still there. If I’m not there when he gets home, I’ll get a beating.”

Miles nodded. He would get a beating too if his dad caught him. The boys retreated deeper into the woods and then out of the woods.

Miles walked the sidewalks for awhile, and then finally he walked home and crawled into bed, but he couldn’t sleep. He had to pretend he slept. His dad must not find out that he had been there watching. He lay quietly in the darkness.

In his mind the event replayed over and over like one of those movies at the theater, But better. This had really happened. And it thrilled him.

CHAPTER TWO, BROKEN HOMES, UNKEPT GARDENS

Chapter Two

The farm where I live is on Yellow Creek Road five miles from town. My housemates are hippies. We take college classes in the fall and winter. In summer, we grow our own vegetables, and sell the eggs our hens lay.

I’m the only one in the group with a regular job.

Rent is cheap because we repair what needs to be repaired, and we take care of the animals. If we move out, the animals would go the bigger Cheney farm, 191 acres of crops and dairy cows. The farm lies behind our little sanctuary.

Vonnie’s nephew Dennis and his American Indian wife Dancing Bear run the big farm. Would they buy Yvonne’s five acres if she wanted to sell? I suspected they would. Vonnie might even give it to them.

Sue, one of my roommates met me at the door. “I started packing your things, Mrs. Cheney said she wanted you back in town ASAP.”

Sue wore a blue granny dress, flowers in her hair and a peace sign necklace. I was in black slacks and a white t-shirt , the uniform of an Almasy House maid.

“If I missed anything, I can bring it to town when I do an egg run,” she said.

“Don’t worry about it; I’m probably going to need to get away. Any excuse will do.”

I went into my bedroom. Two suitcases were packed. I’d have to shop for some dresses if I was going to be managing the house. But I would probably want my black slacks and t-shirts too.

I saw the old doll lying on the dresser.

“Do you want to bring that old thing with you?” Sue asked. She was pointing at Dorothy’s doll, Penny.

I put the doll on top of my suitcase. “I’m keeping it for a friend,” I told her. I knew I shouldn’t keep the doll, or if I did I should rename it. How freaky is it to have a doll with the same name as yours?

Buried deep in my closet is a huge cardboard box. This is my box of treasures. I picked up the box, and despite knowing I had to get back to town soon I sorted the contents.

“A Date With the Everly Brothers” phonograph LP.

“Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs” by Marty Robbins. LP. (Somebody left these recordings at the Chaney Farm. He wasn’t coming back. So the records are mine.

A tube of lipstick, an umbrella and sunglasses shoplifted from a dime store when I was eleven or twelve.

About a dozen old letters. These are the good ones. The boring letters I toss away or put back.

A bundle of pages that Elaine Mynter, the Yorkie cook, put out by the curb one day in 1960 or 1961.

A notebook I took from Mary Mynter Smith’s closet. There were lots of valuable things in her closet that I could have taken. I just took the old notebook.

Some index cards. The museum where I volunteer is putting all the county records of births, weddings and deaths on index cards. Sometimes I make a copy of the index cards for me. Sometimes I copy the information and take it. There are some secrets this town isn’t ready for.

The county won’t notice them missing.

The phone rang. Sue answered it and I could hear her making excuses.

“Mrs. Cheney says she needs you back right away.”

We carried the box, the suitcases and doll to my car. I noticed the cat carrier sitting on the porch.

“Where’s my cat?” I asked after we had the suitcases in the trunk.

“You could leave Thaddeus here.”

“I want him with me. I had better grab his cat food and litter too.” I didn’t have enough money to buy too many extras. I could always hit Vonnie up for extra money to buy cat food and litter, but I preferred go prepared.

We dragged the sacks of litter and food to the car and then went back to the house. Thaddeus sat in the middle of the living room. “I don’t think he wants to leave,” Sue said.

“He won’t mind it after we’re there. Lisa has a nice apartment.”

“You’ve been in her apartment?” Why was Sue so surprised?

“Several times,“ I told her.

“You’re living in a crazy lady’s apartment, with her cat and how many ghosts? If you’re crazy enough to move to Almasy House, at least leave your cat here. I hear Lisa’s cat is as crazy as she is.”

“We’ll be okay. Remember, we aren’t living in Almasy House. We’re across the parking lot. No ghosts there. At least none that I know of.”

“What if Lisa gets out of jail and doesn’t know you’re staying there and she - I don’t know - shoots you?”

“We’ll be safe,” I assured her.

“The charge is murder,“ Sue said.

“Negligent homicide,“ I corrected her. “She hasn’t been convicted yet.”

“YET,” Sue emphasized the word.

“She didn’t do it, okay. It’s a trumped up charge.”

Thaddeus went willingly into the carrier. He was nervous at first. He usually only goes to the vet, so as soon as he realized this was a different kind of outing, he calmed down.

I talked to him as I drove. “The cat you will be living with is Miss Kitty,” I said. “She is a calico named after Miss Kitty on “Gunsmoke.” She has a short stub of a tail just like you because long ago she got out and came back without the tail. We think she was caught in a trap. Don’t you ever get out on me.”

Thaddeus had lost his tail in a mean winter. He had crawled into a car motor for warmth, and when someone started the engine, his tail was cut off by the fan. That happened before I adopted Thaddeus from the local animal shelter. I make sure he is always safe and warm now.

I figured the two cats would like each other because they had the missing tails in common.

I must have a missing brain to get involved with Lisa Brianka’s troubles. But then I was already involved.

When we got to apartment above the Almasy House garage, Thaddeus was sleeping. I carried him upstairs.

Vonnie trusts only a few of us around her sister. Sometimes I’m the only one my boss lets near Lisa.

I opened the door to Lisa’s apartment. “Hey, Miss Kitty,” I called.

I didn’t see Miss Kitty anywhere, so I let Thaddeus out of the carrier and went back outside to get my things. I lugged the suitcases, the doll, the litter, and cat food up the steps and found myself out of breath. That was a workout.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if I could have the rest of the day off?” I said.

Thaddeus came from the bedrooms and rubbed against my legs. “Did you meet Miss Kitty yet?” I asked. “She’s here somewhere.”

The phone started ringing and then someone was knocking on the door. Did I dare answer either one?

“It’s me.” Vonnie called from outside. At least it was safe to open the door. “Do you need anything?” she asked once she was inside.

“Lunch. I’ve got a BLT from the Yorkie Cafe. Can I bum a cup of coffee off your staff?”

“You are my staff,” she reminded me.

“You mean no one else is working today?”

“They’re there. Welcome to your first day as hotel manager.”

“I can’t even manage these two cats.”

The phone had stopped ringing. That was a good thing.

“Give me a minute to look around and make sure I’ve got groceries and enough pet supplies.” I said.

Vonnie opened the refrigerator. “I had Jack buy you some groceries on his way north. He got cat food and there’s enough litter for now.”

“Jack’s here? He could be the one staying in this apartment.”

“He wanted a room in the main house.”

“Lucky him. He gets a choice.”

“Penny, we have serious problems. I need help, and I wouldn’t ask, if I could go someplace else.”

Of course. Secrets had to be kept. Jack, for instance, would be in disguise. He’s an ex-con and conditions of his parole keep him from coming to the Upper Peninsula at all. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t come. He visits often. But I realized staying in Lisa’s apartment would make him conspicuous. Someone would notice and he could end up in jail too. He would be better off at the farm with my hippy friends, but I knew he would want to be closer to his sisters, Vonnie and Lisa.

“Don’t worry,” I told Vonnie. “I’ll do whatever needs to be done.”

“Rent’s free,” she said. “Your salary is triple. Of course, you will also be working triple the hours. That means the historical society needs to find another clerk.”

“But I’m doing an oral history later today,” I said.

I needed some get-away time. I couldn’t think of a better place to hide than in the museum. After all it’s right there at Almasy House. I was not giving up my volunteer job with the historical society. I would manage somehow.

After she left, I checked out the apartment. Jack had brought a bag of potato chips and bottles of Coke. They would go great with my sandwich. But first I wanted to look around some more.

I’m a world class snoop after all. I can’t help myself.

I looked in Lisa Mynter’s closets and in her medicine chest. I might have to take clothes to the jail for her. The medicine chest was bare. She didn’t seem to be taking anything for her weirdness. I wasn’t sure what mental illness she suffered from, and I didn’t want to go over any of that with Vonnie .

I shouldn’t have to. I take care of the business; Vonnie takes care of Lisa. Wasn’t that our agreement?

I tried to call the Cheney place. The line was busy. I ate my lunch. Then I tried to call again. No answer.

There was always someone there to answer the phone. Then Lisa’s phone rang.

I decided to answer it. If it was a reporter or someone else I shouldn’t talk to, I could always hang up.

“Are you coming to work or not?” Vonnie asked. “I need you.”

“I’ve been trying to reach the farmhouse. Something might be wrong. I can’t get an answer.” I said.

“Turn on the T.V.,” she instructed me, “Channel 6.”

Lisa’s phone had a long cord, so I could reach across the room. I flipped on the television and saw the farm where I had been living. Sue was hiding behind a door. “No comment,” she said to a reporter before she slammed the door shut.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“That killer in Louisiana says he buried someone there on my land. There’s also the connection to Lisa’s case.”

“We can’t let them keep snooping out there,” I said. We had a nice cannabis patch behind the house.

“Do we have a choice? The cops have a search warrant. Reporters follow the cops.”

“What about my friends? They live out there.”

“Tell them to move if they don’t like it. Now come over to the big house. Things are just as crazy over here.”

I gulped down the last of my pop.

State Prison, Louisiana, 1970

Sheriff Miles Olson knew the procedure. He had been to the Louisiana State Prison before. He would be searched, photographed and then searched again. His keys and his badge had sharp edges, and could be used as weapons. They could not go inside.

He submitted to the searches. They were like a thousand searches he himself had conducted on prisoners. Only this time he was the one being searched. He didn’t mind it.

Heavy bars opened in front of him; doors clanged shut behind him. Miles wasn’t usually claustrophobic, but he felt hemmed in. It wasn’t enough to know he could walk out.

Finally he was seated in a room made of concrete and steel. The guard who had led him this far locked the door behind him. Miles waited. Time moved at a different pace in here.

He heard scraping noises. The door in front of him opened; another guard entered and then another guard. Behind them came the prisoner. He shuffled in followed by more guards. The prisoner’s legs and hands were restrained by chains that wound around his waist, his wrists and his feet. He sat down heavily, the chains clanging. A guard then handcuffed the prisoner to the table and secured both his legs to the chair.

The prisoner grinned at Miles; it was the kind of grin one would see on a Halloween display. It didn’t make it all the way up his eyes. Surely the prisoner hadn’t been drinking, but he seemed stoned; perhaps he was being drugged. Miles knew they drugged some convicts as their execution day got closer. The men waited until the guards left. Then they would talk.

“How you doin’ old buddy,” the prisoner said. “Still wearin’ a badge in that there hick town?”

Miles didn’t say anything. He stared instead at the prisoner’s forehead. He drummed his fingers on the table.

“You take care of what we talked about?” The prisoner seemed to be chewing something, perhaps gum. Did they give prisoners gum?

“I’m working on it.” Miles said.

“Work a little harder. It ain’t like I’ve got a lot of time left. I ain’t made all my confessions yet.”

Penny When I got to Almasy House the next morning, Jack waited for me in the foyer. He’s Vonnie and Lisa’s brother. We walked to Vonnie’s office, where she was talking to Paul Cantrell, Lisa’s attorney. Dancing Bear Cheney, a full blooded Ojibwa Indian, a licensed M.D. and the doctor on record for Lisa was there too. Most other people around here are too racist to be treated by an Indian, so Danni works mostly as a registered nurse and herbalist. I knew young Dr. Tracie would examine Lisa also, but he and Danni would most likely agree.

After Jack and I were seated, I said, “Go over it again; I want to know what’s happening.”

“What a surprise,” Vonnie said.

I gave her a look in return that said, don’t give me a rough time, and you need my help here.

Vonnie started telling us what she knew.

“Lisa was working with one of the new maids. We’ve been so busy; I had to hire some girls that I don’t know very well. Of course, I told them that Lisa has strange episodes, but I guess this maid was talking to some of the town’s people, and she was told that Lisa is more than a bit off. This maid also knew some things about…” Vonnie couldn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t have to.

“Lisa shouldn’t be working with strangers,” I said. “They scare her.”

“The girl seemed okay, and she had good references. Anyway they weren’t together long. I had them cleaning different rooms. But the girl is young and efficient; she finished her room before Lisa did and went in to help Lisa.”

“What happened?”

“Lisa started talking about killing someone.”

“What?” I said.

“You know she has hallucinations about people getting hung.”

“That doesn’t mean she hangs people.” She wouldn’t know how to do that. Hanging is how a group of men kill someone. A little old lady like Lisa Mynter would have difficulty hanging a picture. Anyway the charge was drowning Vonnie’s five year old son, Louis. I knew how much Vonnie must be hurting as she relived the tragedy.

I still didn’t get the connection between Lisa and her usual crazy banter and the accidental death of a child almost forty years ago.

The old timer was waiting for me in the museum’s gift shop. I led him into Mary Mentor Smith’s outer office. We would do the interview there. Old timers come to the museum to give us oral histories. They talk about the schools they went to, the cars they drove, the friends they had. I get information about the town and how it used to be from these old timers.

“Too bad about that there Brianka girl,” he said.

“She’s got a good lawyer, and Miles sure doesn’t have a case.”

“That girl is peculiar. Don’t believe she’s a killer though.”

“Do you know Lisa?” I asked.

“Not really. Heard lots about her though.”

“Did you know her dad?” I asked. “He worked in the Tilden Mine until 1925. That’s the year he disappeared.”

He nodded. “Knew him. He was a foreigner. Didn’t speak English the best, but he was educated. We all knew that. Something bad happened to him in the old country and he came here.”

“He was Jewish,” I said.

“That’s what they said.”

“Lots of people back then didn’t like the Jews, even here in this country. Do you have any idea what happened to him?”

“Nope.”

“Some people say he was lynched.”

“I ain’t got any idea what happened to him.” The old timer repeated.

“The Klan had something to do with it.” I said.

He nodded. “More ‘an likely.”

Questions:

In this part of the story Penny comes across as more reliable. We know Vonnie, a successful business woman depends on her. Yet Penny has hippy friends who smoke marijuana, and the reader is reminded of her dishonest past? What is your take on Penny? Is she worthy of trust?

In this part of the story we meet some less likable characters including a sheriff with dark secrets, a serial killer who is about to be executed and Jack, ex con who violates his parole by coming to the Upper Michigan. Are any of these characters in any way sympathetic? Which characters will be the greatest threat to Penny and which ones might prove allies?

The 20th century was our most violent century. Some groups, like immigrants and the mentally ill were targeted with hatred and prejudice. Already in this story, a mentally ill woman has been arrested for a crime she did not commit, and we have learned her Jewish father disappeared, perhaps he was even murdered. What other groups of people faced similar prejudice and what are some of the ways they deal with the prejudices aimed against them?

BROKEN HOMES, UNKEPT GARDENS CHAPTER ONE

Chapter One

Penny:

Lisa Brianka’s arrest came as a shock to all of us. Even me. I’m the Mountain Ridge snoop, so usually I’m way ahead of the gossip, and I can even sometimes predict things like this. What I felt that morning was closer to fear than to surprise.

When I stopped by the Yorkie cafe the day after Lisa’s arrest, customers were discussing the latest Lisa gossip.

“Do you think she did it?”

“Of course, she done it.”

“She’s crazy.”

“Everyone knows that.”


 “Don’t mean she killed anyone.”

I glanced around at the dirty floor, the wooden tables, and the toy-sized juke boxes on the counter. Peter Paul and Mary sang “Leaving on a Jet Plane.” Don’t I wish.

Everyone in this town knows what a snoop I am, so people were probably wishing I would do just that - leave on a jet plane or a bus. Anything to get me out of town.

They quieted down. That was all right. I’d heard enough.

I glanced at a copy of today’s newspaper lying on the counter. The Beatles had broken up. Darn. Richard Nixon defended his decision to invade Cambodia. The war in Viet Nam was as unpopular as ever.

I know a lot about unpopularity. I’m not even a war, just a girl trying to escape boredom.

Bev, the waitress, poured me a cup of coffee just the way I like it, strong and black. “Hi, Penny. What’ll it be this morning?” she asked.

“A grilled cheese with a thick slice of tomato. Hash browns. Keep the coffee coming.”

“You got it.” Before she turned to put my order in, she asked, “You know anything?”

“The alphabet, the state capitals and my multiplication tables right up to 13 times 13.”

“Don’t be a smart ass,” she told me.”Were you there when they made the arrest?”

“No.”

“Did you hear anything?”

“What they said on the radio.”

“But you’ll tell me when you find out anything?”

“Depends on what I find out.”

“You know I could spit in your hash browns,” she said.

“You won’t though.”

“Don’t be so sure.” Bev took off with her order pad.

I smiled and waved at Elaine, the elderly cook, who was moving slowly about the kitchen; her arthritis was probably acting up. She ignored me. She’s got some kind of grudge. She says I stole some papers she threw out years ago. What can I tell you? They were at the curb, and I noticed them. She could have burned them. She could have read them herself before she put them on the curb for anyone to take.

I took a deep breath and sipped my coffee. I didn’t look around. I knew the other customers were looking at me. The Peter, Paul and Mary Record stopped. Then the only voice I heard was Elvis Presley’s. He was singing “Suspicious Minds.”

At least the waitress talks to me.

I was just finishing my sandwich when Leo Olson came in. He used to be sheriff here in Mountain Ridge. Olson arrested me back when I was eleven or twelve on a shop lifting charge.

It was a fifty cent tube of lipstick. I could have bought it, but how much fun would that have been?

Leo was 70 or older, but still tall and thin like teen age basketball player. His grey hair was cut short; his steely gray eyes looked at everyone like they were murder suspects or drunken drivers. His skin was weathered like a fisherman’s skin. Yet he wore his years well. I would see him walking and even jogging around town, fit as a man in his thirties.

I started walking toward the door. Then I couldn’t help myself. I had to ask. “Is Lisa Brianka all right?”

The stillness in the room was complete. Every other customer was wondering the same thing, but no one else was brave enough to ask.

Leo sipped his coffee really slow, and then took a deep breath. Cops know that silence makes the rest of us feel uncomfortable and even guilty. Finally he said, “I ain’t a cop anymore.”

“Your son’s the sheriff,” I reminded him. “Is Lisa being treated okay?”

“Far as I know. Miles ain’t here. He’s getting ready to fly down to Louisiana.” Surprise. I was getting information from a cop, but then the sheriff’s comings and goings wouldn’t be secret. Or would they? At least Sheriff Miles Olson had something to occupy him other than poor Lisa.

Norman Cain, a serial killer awaiting execution in Louisiana was spilling his guts, delaying his execution for crimes committed down south by telling authorities where more bodies were buried in the tunnels under and around Mountain Ridge. Dozens of state cops, crime scene investigators and reporters were in town covering the excavations. I supposed Miles’ presence was now and then called for down south.

“Our sheriff’s a busy boy,” I said. “He arrested Lisa last night, and then what? Today he gets on an airplane and flies south.”

“He’s busy,” Leo agreed. I wasn’t going to get anymore out of him.

“Tell Lisa I’m thinking of her, will you?” I said after a pause.

“I ain’t goin’ near that crazy,” Leo said.

I left my car in the cafe parking lot and walked to work. I needed time to think before I got dragged into Lisa and her problems.

When I was younger I used to steal letters from Lisa Mynter’s mail boxes. I don’t do that anymore. But I have read Lisa’s mail. Her daughter Dorothy was my best friend back in grade school; we were thick as thieves, no pun intended. More like thick as a thief and a fraidy cat. Everything scared Dorothy.

I used to surprise her with my daring. I would go into houses when no one was home. She would wait on the sidewalk, sure I would get caught. She would be wearing dusty gray pedal pushers, scuffed up sneakers and a red t-shirt- always red because she liked red. I would wave at her from a window.

She would duck and hide behind some bushes, so she wouldn’t call attention to me.

“You’re gonna get caught,” she would say when I crawled out usually with a few treasures.

“No I won’t.”

I was never vicious in my stealing. I didn’t take bills or checks or anything that looked like it might have value. I did take Dorothy’s doll. Well, Dorothy gave it to me.

Actually Dorothy wasn’t using it anymore. Her name is Penny, just like my name. Dorothy loved the doll and named it long before she met me. The doll is beautiful.

She is good Penny; I am bad Penny.

Upper Michigan is pasty shops; dirt roads surrounded by trees; hunting cabins; towns with main streets lined with bars instead of stores; men in Green Bay Packer gear; overweight women in blue jeans or, depending on the season, snowmobile suits.

Mountain Ridge is set on the Wisconsin border. Talk to the residents, and they know where to find wild mushrooms, blueberries and deer apples. Few people observe hunting season. Venison is served all year long, and it doesn’t always come from the freezer.

Mountain Ridge is one main street and half a dozen side streets. It’s not one of those towns with more bars than houses, but it’s still a redneck zone. Beyond this business district, there are hundreds of houses. Most residents are sons and daughters of miners. The iron mines played out and were replaced by two paper mills, a label factory and a furniture factory.

Sure we have dentists, doctors, lawyers and teachers, but they’re a minority. Most people here are hunters and gatherers or factory rats, uneducated. There are lakes and the summer homes of some of Michigan’s wealthiest families. But you have to drive out of town to find those homes.

I work for Yvonne Cheney, Lisa Brianka’s sister.

And Vonnie as we all call her was in for a difficult time. The murder Lisa is accused of committing is that of Vonnie’s five year old son, Louis back in 1940.

Why bring this old crime now? Why make an arrest on a cold crime? There isn’t any real new evidence.

You’d have to ask the sheriff that, and he wasn’t available.

I like to think I can stay away from Lisa and her problems, but I knew I’d be dragged in. It was not going to be an easy day at work.

My walk from the cafe to Almasy House was all too short.

Almasy House soon towered above me. It’s a bed and breakfast, museum, and haunted house, but not the kind of haunted house that scares people at Halloween. It’s a real haunted house with verified ghost sightings, built in 1902 as a boarding house for miners. But it served as a hotel too, and several prominent politicians and business men stayed there. It fell into disrepair for a few years and then a mysterious buyer or buyers purchased the property and hired Vonnie to run the place.

For a long time we didn’t know who this mysterious buyer was. Vonnie now knows who owns the house.

So do I? But then I am the kind of person who learns about secrets. That one was easy. Okay, Dorothy, told me. But I would have figured it out.

I know a lot about the Briankas, the Rinaldis, the Cheneys, and the Mynters, the families people around here like to talk about. That doesn’t mean I tell.

What happens within these families usually stays within the families. It is not my fault I hear things.

Almasy House is lofty and rambling. I used to be afraid of the house when I was a kid. Now I work there as a maid, and volunteer at the historical society that rents rooms there. We even keep a small museum and office where we are copying county birth marriage and death records. We’ve been busy copying for some time.

When I got to the house, I tried to sneak past the desk clerk. I clocked in, but then I hid my time sheet in my purse. I hoped that if no one could find me, I could clean a few rooms and, I wouldn’t get dragged into Lisa’s problems.

“Vonnie is waiting for you in her office,” the clerk said.

I knew she would be. Might as well get it over with.

Yvonne Cheney is usually calm and efficient like Donna Reed on that old television program where she played a doctor’s wife with two perfect children. Vonnie looks like a dark haired Donna Reed. But that day in her office, Vonnie looked frazzled like she had just been shocked by a strong current of electricity.

“What’s the charge?” I asked. “It can’t be murder. That’s what everyone is saying, but…”

“Negligent homicide,” she told me.

“What? That’s impossible. I thought the charges would be demised by now.”

“She confessed. That’s what Miles says.”

“Miles is in Louisiana. Or he’s on his way. I talked to his dad at the Yorkie.”

“Well he was here last night, and he’s coming back.”

“Someone must have pinned his badge on his brain,” I said. “Confession. Phooey. That won’t work. Lisa’s mentally ill. She would confess to bombing Pearl Harbor. What are they gonna do? Put her back in Newberry?”

Newberry is the state mental hospital and Lisa had spent some time there. Some people think she never should have left.

Vonnie wiped her eyes. I had never seen her cry. She is usually as calm as a parking meter.

“She didn’t kill your son,” I told her.

Vonnie nodded.

“I need you to move into her apartment.” she said.

“I’ve got my own place to stay.”

“Just for awhile. I’ll need you close by. You’ll be my assistant.”


 “I don’t want to stay in her apartment.” Lisa stayed above the garage, in what used to be the stables when this house opened. It was a nice efficiency apartment with a kitchen, bedroom, bath and a large living room. It was the apartment, I would have wanted if Lisa had not been living there. But I wasn’t going to tell Vonnie that.

“Think of it as free rent,” she said.

I frowned. “Why can’t I stay at the old Cheney farm house. It’s where I live.” Either way Vonnie Cheney would be my landlady. I did like the idea of free rent and being closer to my work, but I’d be closer to Lisa and her problems too. I was not going to let myself be drawn in any more than I had to.

“I need you here,” Vonnie said, “I have to help Lisa. You have to help me.”

Did I have a choice? I decided it would take me at least an hour to move in.

“I have a cat,” I reminded Vonnie.

“So does Lisa, and Miss Kitty needs to be fed. I don’t know if anyone’s been up there.”

“Just give me the key. I’ll check on Miss Kitty and then go get my things.”

As she searched her desk drawer for the key, Vonnie started detailing her problems. Not only was her sister being charged with negligent homicide, but it the tourist season. And tourists weren’t the only people interested in staying at Almasy House. We had all those cops and reporters taking up the rooms. What would we do with the season regulars when they showed up? That had already been decided.

The cops and reporters agreed to smaller rooms and even doubling up. But it was still a lot more work because we had more guests.

Vonnie said, “We have a historian in Room 217. He’s writing a history of this house. I told him you were the one to talk to, Penny.”

I grimaced. Why me?

Miss Kitty’s litter box just needed a little scooping. She still had some kibble in her bowl. I gave her fresh water and extra kibble.

“I don’t know when you’ll see your mistress again,” I told the cat. “But I’ll take good care of you.”

It was good I had left my car down the street. Walking those few blocks back to it gave me a chance to be away. Would the next few weeks be all that bad? I could probably run Almasy House as well as Vonnie could. I was proud she trusted me with the responsibility.

I wouldn’t talk to reporters, lawyers or police officers about Lisa. I knew too much and I was smart enough not to say anything.

I had free rent for awhile and two cats to take care of. Hadn’t I wanted a second cat for a long time? It would be good for my cat Thaddeus to have a companion and for me to be living closer to work.

Who was I kidding?

The next couple of weeks were going to be hell.

I decided to get a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich to go before driving out to the farm to get my clothes and my cat. The customers at the Yorkie were still gabbing.

“She’s getting off easy,” Bev told me. She gave me a coffee on the house while I waited for my to-go order. “Did you hear? The charge is going to be negligent homicide.”

“They won’t make it stick,” I said.

“I’m sorry, Penny,” she said. “I think they will.”

Some old men sat by the window drinking coffee. “Michigan should have the death penalty like they do down south? They should fry her ass like they’re gonna do to that feller in Louisiana.” One of them said. Bev put her hand on my wrist. “Pretend you don’t hear.”

Questions about the novel so far:

1. Penny Payton admits to being a dishonest person. She has a past that includes stealing and shop lifting. The townspeople don’t trust her. Will she be a reliable narrator?

What do unreliable narrators bring to the stories they tell? 2. Lisa Brianka is described as crazy. Why do you think terms like “Crazy” are sometimes used to describe people at society’s edge?

3. In helping Lisa, Penny has the advantage of her nosiness and even her dishonesty. Why do you think Penny, the community’s bad girl will help Lisa, the town crazy?

4. Penny is NOT a gossip. She keeps the town’s secrets. Does that make you like her more or less?

5. Why do you thin Vonnie, a successful business woman relies on Penny so much? Would you hire a maid with a reputation for stealing and snooping?

6. Lisa’s cat is said to be as crazy as she is. What does this tell us about the community where they live? Spoiler: The cats are safe in this story. It’s just the people who are endangered. The question is about gossip, not about cats.

MEET SISTERS, VONNIE AND LISA FROM MY NOVEL "BITTER HOMES AND UNKEPT GARDENS."

I asked the characters in my novel “Bitter Homes and Gardens” to give me some of their thoughts.

Vonnie:

Why does my family have to be so different? Why do I have to be so different? It seems no matter what we do people in this town want to talk about us.

They say my brother Jack is mobbed up. They say my niece Penny is a thief and a freak. The freak part is my sister Lisa’s fault. She insists Penny was born with a tail. What kind of a mother goes around saying her daughter was born with a tail?

I am very good to Lisa. I gave her a job; I defend her even if she usually doesn’t deserve the defending. Of course, I am not exempt from the gossip. My beautiful lover, Walt is a woman. We are lesbians, but most people call us queers.

Lisa:

I worry that Vonnie blames me for the death of her son. Louis drowned when I was supposed to be watching him. Lots of people think I drowned the child myself? Why would I do that?

COWBOYS AND PRESIDENTS

Garry Willis in “The Kennedy Imprisonment” compares the president to a gunslinger in a western movie. The town (country) faces problems too great for the old sheriff. A gunslinger (Clint Eastwood or John Wayne) is brought to town to deal with the problems. He moves on after a period of time. Then new problems arise and a new gunslinger comes to town.

I wondered what other plot types could be applied to American politics

The problem with this one is that the gunslinger in the movie solves problems and leaves a town of happy people. Presidents seldom leave the voters happy.

Since Ronald Reagan, we have not been looking for solutions. We cling to old solutions like “trickle down economy” even knowing that didn’t work.

The Koch Brothers are the problem gunslingers who will not leave.

The other problem is that our presidents sometimes create problems; they don’t always solve problems.

The country has been paranoid about drugs and national security since Nixon. Were drugs really a problem great enough to declare war on them? We now have the largest prison population in the world. Are we still the land of the free? We have government spying on our people, listening to our cell phone conversations and reading our emails.

Barack Obama promised us single payer national health system. He did not deliver. The insurance companies are still in town and more powerful than ever.

Instead of a gunslinger, we need a school teacher to explain common decency and manners to Donald Trump and his followers.

Where the gunfighter image works is in the expectations of liberals. We liberals expected Bill Clinton and then Barack Obama to come to town and clean up the conservative mess. Then we put our hopes on Elizabeth Warren, but in 2016, she did not saddle up. Can Bernie Sanders save us? Is he the hero we have been waiting for?

Our western movie fails to end the way we want it to.