he’d spent most of his life on a farm, where butchering animals was a standard part of his existence, but also because he seemed so preoccupied with violence. Eddie was a great one for reading and had a particular affection for true crime magazines, the kind with lurid covers of half-naked girls being assaulted by beefy men in trench coats and black leather masks. Eddie couldn’t get enough of these publications and was constantly recounting, for the benefit of anyone who would listen, some especially juicy lust killing he had just read about in the latest issue of Inside Crime or Startling Detective . Murder was one of his favorite topics of conversation. In the company of men, he also tended to talk about women, though his comments—how cute Irene Hill looked or how “nice and plump” Bernice Worden had become—sounded more like the utterances of a schoolboy than the responses of a forty-year-old man.
Of course, Eddie wasn’t found in the company of men very often. Though the people he came in contact with—the farmers, housewives, and merchants of Plainfield—couldn’t see it, Eddie was, by the early 1950s, in full retreat—from society, from reality, from sanity itself. More and more of his time was spent in the darkness of his decaying farmhouse. In the past, he would kill some time occasionally at the Plainfield ice cream parlor or at the big indoor roller-skating rink in the neighboring village of Hancock. Now, except to do an odd job or run an errand, he rarely went anywhere. In fact, there seemed to be only one place in the area he continued to visit with any regularity: Mary Hogan’s tavern.
Situated in the tiny town of Pine Grove, about seven miles from the village of Plainfield,, Hogan’s establishment was an odd-looking place. Built of concrete blocks with a semicylindrical roof of corrugated metal, it looked less like a roadside tavern than a warehouse topped with a Blatz Beer sign.
Having been raised by an abusive, alcoholic father and a fanatically moralistic mother who viewed liquor as only slightly less vile than sex, Eddie wasn’t much of a drinker. But he did indulge in a beer now and then. His real reason for visiting Mary Hogan’s place, though, was not to drink or socialize—he could have accomplished those goals in a number of taverns closer to home—but to observe the proprietress. Eddie was transfixed by her.
A formidable middle-aged woman who weighted nearly two hundred pounds and spoke with a heavy German accent, Mary Hogan bore—at least in Eddie’s eyes—an unmistakable resemblance to his own mother. What made her so fascinating to him, however, were not just the similarities but, even more, the glaring differences between the two. Augusta had been a saint on earth, the purest, most pious woman in the world. Hogan, by contrast, was a foul-mouthed tavern keeper with a shady, even sinister past. Few hard facts would ever be known about her, but according to rumor, she was twice divorced, had connections to the mob (she had moved to rural Wisconsin from Chicago some years before), and was even reputed to have been a big-city madam. To Eddie, she was like some kind of perverse mirror image of Augusta, as evil as his mother had been good.
Thinking about the two of them together that way made Eddie feel dizzy. How could God have allowed his mother to waste away and die, while suffering this Hogan creature to live? He couldn’t figure it out.
One thing was for sure, though. God couldn’t possibly permit such a flagrant injustice to go on for very long. Deep in his bones, Eddie just knew that was true.
7
BETH SCOTT and MICHAEL NORMAN, Haunted Heartland
“ The bond between a mother and her child is often beyond comprehension—a slight, unexpected stirring from the baby’s nursery can awaken her from deepest slumber, an almost sixth sense warns of imminent danger to her little one. But does the sense of peril end at what is taken by most to be death? Or can a mother
Of course, Eddie wasn’t found in the company of men very often. Though the people he came in contact with—the farmers, housewives, and merchants of Plainfield—couldn’t see it, Eddie was, by the early 1950s, in full retreat—from society, from reality, from sanity itself. More and more of his time was spent in the darkness of his decaying farmhouse. In the past, he would kill some time occasionally at the Plainfield ice cream parlor or at the big indoor roller-skating rink in the neighboring village of Hancock. Now, except to do an odd job or run an errand, he rarely went anywhere. In fact, there seemed to be only one place in the area he continued to visit with any regularity: Mary Hogan’s tavern.
Situated in the tiny town of Pine Grove, about seven miles from the village of Plainfield,, Hogan’s establishment was an odd-looking place. Built of concrete blocks with a semicylindrical roof of corrugated metal, it looked less like a roadside tavern than a warehouse topped with a Blatz Beer sign.
Having been raised by an abusive, alcoholic father and a fanatically moralistic mother who viewed liquor as only slightly less vile than sex, Eddie wasn’t much of a drinker. But he did indulge in a beer now and then. His real reason for visiting Mary Hogan’s place, though, was not to drink or socialize—he could have accomplished those goals in a number of taverns closer to home—but to observe the proprietress. Eddie was transfixed by her.
A formidable middle-aged woman who weighted nearly two hundred pounds and spoke with a heavy German accent, Mary Hogan bore—at least in Eddie’s eyes—an unmistakable resemblance to his own mother. What made her so fascinating to him, however, were not just the similarities but, even more, the glaring differences between the two. Augusta had been a saint on earth, the purest, most pious woman in the world. Hogan, by contrast, was a foul-mouthed tavern keeper with a shady, even sinister past. Few hard facts would ever be known about her, but according to rumor, she was twice divorced, had connections to the mob (she had moved to rural Wisconsin from Chicago some years before), and was even reputed to have been a big-city madam. To Eddie, she was like some kind of perverse mirror image of Augusta, as evil as his mother had been good.
Thinking about the two of them together that way made Eddie feel dizzy. How could God have allowed his mother to waste away and die, while suffering this Hogan creature to live? He couldn’t figure it out.
One thing was for sure, though. God couldn’t possibly permit such a flagrant injustice to go on for very long. Deep in his bones, Eddie just knew that was true.
7
BETH SCOTT and MICHAEL NORMAN, Haunted Heartland
“ The bond between a mother and her child is often beyond comprehension—a slight, unexpected stirring from the baby’s nursery can awaken her from deepest slumber, an almost sixth sense warns of imminent danger to her little one. But does the sense of peril end at what is taken by most to be death? Or can a mother
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