Page 14 of The Girl from Devil's Lake
“Where he came from is none of your business.”
“So it’s a boy then?” Marliss crowed. “A missing boy?”
Bodily removing Marliss’s hand from the door, Joanna wrenched it open. “Yes,” she snapped. “Now get the hell away from my car.”
“Any comments about winning the election?” Marliss continued.
“None!” Joanna responded. “No comments at all.”
That’s when Joanna noticed that Marliss was holding a cell phone in her hand. No doubt it was set to record, and everything Joanna had just said would be front and center on Marliss’s next Cochise County Courier crime column post.
So be it, Joanna thought to herself, leaving Marliss standing there watching.I already won, so do your worst.
Chapter 5
Fertile, Minnesota
Spring 1962
Steve started his junior year in high school a monthafter his encounter with Brian Olson in August of 1961. By then the voices of Hoot and King Kong had retired from the field of battle, replaced by ones who were less excitable and somewhat more discreet. His favorite, of course, and by far the smartest of the bunch, was one he called Sherlock. Although Arthur Conan Doyle never said as much, and neither did Steve’s personal voice version, Steve suspected that in addition to being a drug addict, there was a good chance that Sherlock Holmes had been queer as a three-dollar bill.
Not that Steve himself was. Early on, he had figured out that he was different from other boys. Most of them were interested in girls. Steve wasn’t, and boys who were interested in boys were constant targets for bullying and derision. In actual fact, Steve wasn’t interested in boys, either, but he was smart enough to choose the path of least resistance.
He pretended that he liked girls in the same way he had acted sad at Grandma Lucille’s funeral. Steve was a fair baseball player for Fertile-Beltrami High School. He didn’t do so often, but once he connected with a ball, he could run like the wind. That meant that at school, he hung out with the jocks, whistling and making rude comments about passing girls right along with the rest of them. He smoked and drankand did his fair share of sissy bullying, too. All that served to entrench him as one of the guys, and as a card-carrying member of the in-crowd. It also made him an attractive target for girls.
Of those, Mindy Peterson was by far the most persistent and, ultimately, the most challenging to shake off. She was a cute little blonde, one of the cheerleaders, and a straight-A student. In the spring of their junior year, she was also Steve’s date for the prom. That night, however, she was far more interested in making out than she was in dancing, and she was more than a little annoyed when Steve took exception to her idea of their “going all the way.”
“You don’t have to worry,” she pouted when he objected. “My mom got me a prescription. I’m on the pill.”
“I said no, and I mean it,” Steve had told her. “I’m a virgin, and that’s what I want to be on my wedding night.” Not that he ever intended to have one of those.
At that point, however, Mindy had gotten out of his car (Gramps’s new Buick, really) and flounced off across the parking lot where she caught a ride home with someone else. Word about his refusal spread quickly because, by the next week, guys at school started calling him “Steve, the Verge.”
He put up a good front, telling them all in no uncertain terms to go screw themselves, adding that, “I’d a whole lot rather be a virgin than a daddy.”
Eventually it became apparent that Mindy had lied to him about her being on the pill. Shortly after the prom, she started dating Wilbur Morton, the Fertile-Beltrami Falcons’ lead quarterback. Wilbur was good enough that he probably would have ended up with a full-ride athletic scholarship, but by the time graduation rolled around, Mindy was several months pregnant. They married two weeks after graduation. Steve was already at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul when his mother sent him a clipping of the birth announcement that had shown up in Polk County’s weekly newspaper, thePolk County Register. As soon as Steve saw the clipping, his heart was flooded with gratitude.Thank God I dodged that bullet, he told himself.
But the incident with Mindy still had consequences. In the week following the ill-fated prom, the voices had all chimed in again, because being called “Steve the Verge” pissed them off every bit as much as it did Steve. On Friday, May 25, 1962, a week after it happened, he told his mother that he and some of his buddies were going to spend the weekend fishing at a favorite spot at Detroit Lakes. After packing up his fishing and camping gear, off he went—entirely on his own.
Instead of heading southeast, he took Highway 2 in the opposite direction—northwest. After crossing the state line into North Dakota and driving through Grand Forks, he continued west. Just beyond the entrance to Grand Forks Air Force Base, he spotted a hitchhiker standing on the shoulder of the road. At first he couldn’t tell if the person was male or female, but as he pulled over, he was relieved to see an attractive young woman wearing a Levi jacket, jeans, and a pair of worn cowboy boots. Her straight black hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail, and her tanned skin and prominent cheekbones told him she was most likely Indian.
Steve leaned over and rolled down the passenger window. “Where are you headed?” he asked.
“Devil’s Lake,” she answered.
“That’s on my way,” he said. “I’ll drop you off. Hop in.”
She climbed in, pulling the door shut behind her. Steve noticed she wasn’t carrying anything at all—no purse, luggage, or backpack.
“Day trip?” he asked.
She nodded. “It’s my grandmother’s birthday. I have to be back at work in Grand Forks tomorrow.” She sat with her left hand resting on her knee and her right elbow and arm on the armrest.
“Where do you work?”
“I’m a nurse’s aide at the hospital.”
Steve stole a glance in her direction. She was a little bit of a thing, probably no more than five four, and fairly good looking, except for a pair of very thick glasses. The poor girl had to be extremely nearsighted. That’s when he noticed the brightly colored beaded bracelet on her left wrist.
