Read Online Deviant by Harold Schechter - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Harold Schechter
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Whenever he thinks of her now, he pictures her as he saw her last, in her coffin.
For a long time, he was convinced that he could get her back, that his willpower was strong enough to raise her from the grave. On several nights, when the rest of the world was sleeping, he even drove out to the Plainfield cemetery and attempted it. But his efforts were not successful.
There are the others, of course—the women who have become such an important part of his life. But they are a poor substitute for his mother.
Stretched out on his shabby, unmade mattress, he knows what is coming. When it hits him, his whole body begins to tremble, and he has trouble catching his breath.
He bolts from his bed and hurries from the farmhouse.
Outside, the rain has left a clean, almost springlike aroma in the air. But that is not what Eddie smells.
By now, he can barely control himself, so powerful is his craving. Clearly, it has been too long since he last made a visit.
Small Midwestern towns are not renowned for their night life, but Eddie knows at least three places nearby where the women are always waiting and available.
He climbs into his pickup and heads off into the night.
8
Editorial headline, Plainfield Sun
“ What Happened to Mary Hogan ?”
D uring a ten-year period, beginning in the late 1940s, Wisconsin law-enforcement officials were baffled by a handful of mysterious disappearances.
An eight-year-old girl named Georgia Weckler was the first. On sunny Thursday afternoon, May 1, 1947, little Georgia was given a lift home from her grade school in Jefferson, Wisconsin, by a neighbor, Mrs. Carl Floerke, who dropped the girl off by the half-mile lane that led from Highway 12 to the Weckler farmhouse. Mrs. Floerke watched as the girl paused to open her family’s roadside letterbox and remove a stack of mail. Then Georgia gave Mrs. Floerke a final wave goodbye and turned up the lane toward home.
She was never seen again.
When the girl failed to show up at home by evening, local lawmen were called in and immediately launched an all-night search, which proved fruitless. By Friday, hundreds of area residents had joined in the hunt, scouring ten square miles of countryside without finding a trace of the missing girl. Farmers and businessmen from around the county also contributed more than eight thousand dollars as a reward for information leading to the Weckler girl’s recovery.
The only clue to her disappearance was a black Ford sedan which had been seen backing out of the Wecklers’ lane shortly after Mrs. Floerke let Georgia off by the mailbox. Sheriff George Perry of Jefferson discovered deep ruts in the gravel—clearly caused by the rapid spinning of automobile tires—which suggested that the Ford had taken off in a hurry.
On Monday night, Georgia’s father—a respected member of the community who served as town treasurer#8212;went on the radio to appeal for his daughter’s release. But when a week had passed without a word from the abductors, Georgia’s parents and neighbors could only assume the worst. As the headline article in the May 8, 1947, issue of the Jefferson Banner put it, “Lack of any effort on the part of the kidnappers to contact the parents gave rise to fears that her disappearance may have been the work of a perverted mind.”
The same sort of mind was at work once again in the case of a pretty teenaged girl named Evelyn Hartley, the daughter of a biology professor at Wisconsin State College in La Crosse. A fifteen-year-old honor student at Central High School, Evelyn occasionally babysat for family friends, and at six-thirty P.M. on Saturday, October 24, 1953, she arrived at the home of her father’s colleague, Professor Viggo Rasmussen, to take care of the Rasmussens’ twenty-month-old daughter, Janis, while the parents attended Wisconsin State’s homecoming game.
Evelyn had only been babysitting for a year, and it was her practice to check in with her parents by phone at some point in the
For a long time, he was convinced that he could get her back, that his willpower was strong enough to raise her from the grave. On several nights, when the rest of the world was sleeping, he even drove out to the Plainfield cemetery and attempted it. But his efforts were not successful.
There are the others, of course—the women who have become such an important part of his life. But they are a poor substitute for his mother.
Stretched out on his shabby, unmade mattress, he knows what is coming. When it hits him, his whole body begins to tremble, and he has trouble catching his breath.
He bolts from his bed and hurries from the farmhouse.
Outside, the rain has left a clean, almost springlike aroma in the air. But that is not what Eddie smells.
By now, he can barely control himself, so powerful is his craving. Clearly, it has been too long since he last made a visit.
Small Midwestern towns are not renowned for their night life, but Eddie knows at least three places nearby where the women are always waiting and available.
He climbs into his pickup and heads off into the night.
8
Editorial headline, Plainfield Sun
“ What Happened to Mary Hogan ?”
D uring a ten-year period, beginning in the late 1940s, Wisconsin law-enforcement officials were baffled by a handful of mysterious disappearances.
An eight-year-old girl named Georgia Weckler was the first. On sunny Thursday afternoon, May 1, 1947, little Georgia was given a lift home from her grade school in Jefferson, Wisconsin, by a neighbor, Mrs. Carl Floerke, who dropped the girl off by the half-mile lane that led from Highway 12 to the Weckler farmhouse. Mrs. Floerke watched as the girl paused to open her family’s roadside letterbox and remove a stack of mail. Then Georgia gave Mrs. Floerke a final wave goodbye and turned up the lane toward home.
She was never seen again.
When the girl failed to show up at home by evening, local lawmen were called in and immediately launched an all-night search, which proved fruitless. By Friday, hundreds of area residents had joined in the hunt, scouring ten square miles of countryside without finding a trace of the missing girl. Farmers and businessmen from around the county also contributed more than eight thousand dollars as a reward for information leading to the Weckler girl’s recovery.
The only clue to her disappearance was a black Ford sedan which had been seen backing out of the Wecklers’ lane shortly after Mrs. Floerke let Georgia off by the mailbox. Sheriff George Perry of Jefferson discovered deep ruts in the gravel—clearly caused by the rapid spinning of automobile tires—which suggested that the Ford had taken off in a hurry.
On Monday night, Georgia’s father—a respected member of the community who served as town treasurer#8212;went on the radio to appeal for his daughter’s release. But when a week had passed without a word from the abductors, Georgia’s parents and neighbors could only assume the worst. As the headline article in the May 8, 1947, issue of the Jefferson Banner put it, “Lack of any effort on the part of the kidnappers to contact the parents gave rise to fears that her disappearance may have been the work of a perverted mind.”
The same sort of mind was at work once again in the case of a pretty teenaged girl named Evelyn Hartley, the daughter of a biology professor at Wisconsin State College in La Crosse. A fifteen-year-old honor student at Central High School, Evelyn occasionally babysat for family friends, and at six-thirty P.M. on Saturday, October 24, 1953, she arrived at the home of her father’s colleague, Professor Viggo Rasmussen, to take care of the Rasmussens’ twenty-month-old daughter, Janis, while the parents attended Wisconsin State’s homecoming game.
Evelyn had only been babysitting for a year, and it was her practice to check in with her parents by phone at some point in the
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