Emmetsburg: Forty-nine

Umber. John hesitated at the steps to the jail across from the courthouse in Emmetsburg. It might have been better to leave well enough alone. A weaker part of him felt as though he'd been given a reprieve from the fate Louis described. The better part of him felt sure it was nothing more than the ramblings of a criminally insane man. But if all that was true, why did the questions persist in haunting him so?

How did Louis know about Bert Himmel? That little mystery added an undeniable weight to his ramblings, and had served to call into question so much that he took as unassailable. It plagued and shadowed damn near every thought and action that he might be living his final days, and that Anna would go off and find another love whom she might be just as happy or happier than with him. That specter made every breath and every moment agonizing. More, it caused him to question Anna and the very foundations of a love he prayed was eternal and exalted by God Himself. But if any of that were true, why did Louis not predict his own fate?

It wasn't much of a jail. The dull brown brick building was small, and partly painted in the mottled shade of a crooked oak. There were three cells at the back of the building, with old fashioned bars, straight out of some old Western movie. Most days they went unused, but for the occasional bar brawl, a drunk or two and vagrants coming in on out of town trains. Next to Louis Stanton the most dangerous criminals ever to grace Emmetsburg's jail were a couple out of towner's who, after attempting to blow up the bank at Cylinder, became so lost among tall August corn that they surrendered to the first farmer they came across. John found himself at the top of the step, almost without realizing, as if he was moving in a dream, as if he was a spectator in a foreign body.

John had questions. He had questions about Bert Himmel and how he knew old Bert would pass away that night. What was hardest for John to figure was, if Louis could see the future, why hadn't he predicted his own arrest? And what did that mean for John's fate, at least the one Louis predicted? Was it all the ramblings of a fool, or a con man who could read folks like some back alley Parisian Gypsy?

John went through the heavy wooden door, immediately assailed by the thin stale air within. It felt to him like a crypt, as it the air had not been let out in years, as if it was old and tired but whimsically melancholic. It was warmer inside than out on the street. The windows were up, but it did little for the heat. What it did do was let in the sounds off the street wheich, in that dulcid space, blended to a pale hollow din. On the back wall there were three eight by ten black and white portraits, hung vertically. President Hoover occupied the top spot. Below that was a porttrait of a pompous Vice President Curtis. Last was that of Govenor Daniel Turner. The walls were a faded shade of pale blue. Three heavy metal desks occupied the room, arranged neatly behind the receptionist's desk. All were a soft pea green, each with a pair of cherry-stained chairs set neatly before them. An American flag with dingy gold tassels hung limp on a pole in the far corner beside the stairs leading to George Bremer's second floor office.

Mildred O'connor, the receptionist. looked up from the Underwood typewriter. A report she was working on was being typed in triplicate, each page curling away and separated by thin reused black.sheets of fragile carbon paper.

Mildred had lost her husband the winter before last. Hank O;connor worked a lifetime with the railroad as a signalman. John knew Hank from Hamilton's diner and soda fountain's around the corner, which served the best and cheapest made-rite sandwiches in town. He went quietly in his sleep one night, a heartattack the doctor's said. But grief and the years had done little to diminish a natural beauty, nor an unmistakable enthusiasm that the good Lord put in her body. There wasn't a Sunday John could recall that Mildred wasn't leading the chior at St.Mary's.

Mildred smiled warmly, and invitation to return the gesture John found impossible to refuse. Her sharp blue eyes lit up the moment, further evidence of an uncommon beauty and warmth, neither of which had diminished greatly through the years. The expression darkened to a sympathetic smile, in Mildred's overly dramatic style, when she noticed the bandage on his hand.

“Oh dear,” she gasped. For anyone else such gushing emotion would see fake or condescending. “Looks just awful!. Must hurt something terrible.”

John reached out and gently squeezed her small frail hand. “In the way more than anything, “Miss O'conner.”

“Trust Misses Perkins is taking good care of you?”

He let go of her hand. “Never better.”

“Ah, she's a good soul, just like my Henry was.”

“Th at she is,” he agreed readily.

“You cherish every minute with that girl,” said Mildred.

John nodded smartly. “I do.”

“Gosh,” she beamed cutely, “remember when the two of you were a couple kids. I would say to Henry, now there's a couple meant for each other!”

“Expect Anna would be pleased to hear that.”

“Don't life just go by so fast?” Mildred waxed.

“That is does, Misses O'connor,” said John with a smart nod. “George back in his office?”

“Expect that's what you came in for,” She waved a hand in the air and turned sharply back to her reports. “Look at me, the lonely old widow, babbling on and on.”

“Not at all, hon,” said John. “Always a pleasure.”