The Weatherman (15 page)

Andrea walked to the window. Icy raindrops splattered the glass. She twirled the rose he’d given her beneath her nose. All was quiet but for the drip of the hose into the pail.

Even in the blurring rain the grandest avenue in Minnesota appeared frozen in time. Old-fashioned street lamps punctuated the beauty of it all. A horse and sleigh down the center of the street would have been appropriate. Tall evergreens on the front lawn twinkled with white lights. The same white lights were festooned on the iron fence above the snowy sidewalk. Across the way, hiding behind a row of Norwegian pines, another imposing stone residence was decorated in lights of rainbow colors. The Queen Anne house next door to the pines displayed a nativity scene below its front portico. Christmas had come to Summit Avenue.

Andrea stood mesmerized by the avenue’s grace and charm. The governor-elect came up to her and put his graceful arms around her waist from behind. He leaned his chin on her shoulder. He pressed his body tight against hers. His breath was warm and sweet. His cologne smelled of the north woods. “Winter is what I love about Minnesota,” he whispered. “It keeps the riff-raff out.”

She turned immediately and kissed him, a deep, warm kiss. Andrea Labore had never felt so good about feeling so guilty. “Merry Christmas, Governor.”

“Merry Christmas to you, Andrea.”

She tuned out his wife and children. All journalistic principles came off with her blouse. Her own rules about avoiding cops and politicians fell to the floor.

On the daybed he slid off her slacks and admired her legs. Andrea worked hard to keep the weight off. Was she too skinny? She worried about this as the governor-to-be removed her bra and nibbled on her small breasts. Her nipples began to harden. He licked his way back to her face. It was her face men wanted.

Andrea’s aversion to cops literally came in her face. When she was on the police force she dated a homicide detective for weeks before she decided to go to bed with him. It was a power struggle from the moment they hit the sheets. He wanted on top. He called her a bitch and pinned her hands above her head. He ejaculated in her face, then used the head of his dick to rub it in. It was her first experience with an angry cop and angry sex.

Ellefson kept rubbing his hands tenderly over her face, whispering in her ear. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. I knew from the start we’d be together someday.” Then he stood to take off his clothes. She turned away from him and watched the freezing rain falling over the tree branches. When he crawled back onto the bed, she closed her eyes and waited for his caress.

But he only brushed a hand across her face. “Look at me.”

Andrea opened her eyes. He was on his knees over her. His erection was long and thick. She took the Republican cannon in her hand and began stroking his ego. When he didn’t move, she knew what he was waiting for. The obligatory kiss. He clasped the back of her head as she sucked him. Satisfied, he went down on her slow and easy, and Andrea began to more enjoy the experience and appreciate the man. Again she took him by the hand, this time putting it where she wanted it, helping him inside of her.

After the sex Andrea Labore buried her beautiful but guilty face into the wide, hairy chest of governor-elect Per Ellefson. Where could this possibly go? What did she have to gain? Was she really falling for this guy? But then the new governor wasn’t the only man confusing her these days.

“Did he ask you out?”

When they first began working together on the stranglings that autumn, Andrea was as antagonistic towards Rick Beanblossom as was he towards her. She hated his attitude. She was sure he hated her face. But her work ethic and her iron will were winning him over, though the son of a bitch would be loath to admit it. Her attitude seemed to change with the seasons. Winter brought cold respect and admiration for the masked man. They were more alike than she wanted to admit. She learned he read Time magazine and U.S. News & World Report from cover to cover every week. He read the New York Times every morning, as well as the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press. She watched him work a computer like an electronic historian, pulling related facts and articles out of obscure periodicals. He would excuse himself, walk to a phone, and return minutes later with information reporters have no right to. In media circles it was well known that the masked newsman was “plugged in.” His Pulitzer Prize-winning story on organized crime and its insidious infiltration of Minnesota’s multi-billion-dollar gambling industry could only have been written with the help of the state’s top cops. The outgoing governor ordered an investigation into the leaks that tarnished his image and made him unelectable, but Beanblossom’s source was never found out.

Andrea tried to cultivate her own sources, but most cops never trusted her after she quit the force. Some cops thought her a traitor. She doubled her own news reading, finding Time and Newsweek easier and easier to digest. What began as a chore soon became fascinating. Not only was she retaining the news she read, she was becoming absorbed by it.

She did best the things the masked producer couldn’t do, or wouldn’t do, like talking off-camera with friends and families of those who had been murdered. She had a warm, caring manner. In newsrooms murders run together like Monday through Friday. As time goes by it becomes difficult to remember one grisly crime from the other. But they were women with lives before they were murder victims, and Andrea made them human again. She was convinced they had all died at the hands of a man. The same man.

Debra Ann Miller, a single woman working in health insurance. Her area of expertise: working women and their health care needs. Strangled atop a parking ramp in broad daylight on her way to her car.

Lorelei Hayne-everybody called her Sis. Seventeen years old and about to begin her senior year at Harding High. She sold hot dogs at Twins games to earn money for college. She already had her application in at St. Catherine. Strangled atop a dark parking ramp in the pouring rain on her way to her daddy’s car.

Caroline Fawn. A Chippewa Indian. Majoring in music and theater at the University of Wisconsin. Engaged to be married in the spring. Strangled atop a river bluff as the sun rose on a gorgeous Indian summer day.

Andrea knew Rick Beanblossom didn’t always like this humanizing effect. He fixated on things, not people. One day in the fall, as they drove back to the newsroom after an interview, he made her stop the car at a park, where he got out and admired a cluster of trees ablaze in their autumn colors. Another time it was a rose garden off Lake Harriet during the first snow. The time after that it was a 1963 red-and-white Corvette. He never said anything, just stopped and looked, and she was left to wonder what was going on inside that mask.

Women didn’t seem of much interest to him, either. Through their changing relationship Rick kept his feelings towards Andrea hidden. Feigned disinterest. But every now and then came a spark of affection and what seemed a flicker of jealousy. Then he would say something that would bother her for days. Like when she mentioned her master’s degree.

“I can’t imagine what took you five years to learn. You must be really stupid.”

And when she told him of the exclusive interview with the new governor, the masked newsman didn’t want to know how the interview went. All he would say, in that smug way of his, was, “Did he ask you out?”

She cried, “Don’t be ridiculous. He’s married and has two daughters.”

That was before Ellefson called, before he made love to her.

Andrea was happy but confused. She turned to the man elected governor. He seemed asleep. It was Christmas Eve. He would have to be going soon. She turned back to the window. The rain falling through the trees was turning to ice now, just as the Weatherman had said it would. She heard a howling noise, either the wind against the windowpane or the Hound of the Rolvaags. She crawled back into the strong arms of the most handsome man she’d ever known.

But as Andrea Labore drifted off to sleep that night, it wasn’t the face of Per Ellefson she was thinking about. It was the faceless face of the man behind the mask that haunted her.

Rick Beanblossom had a corner table at the Daily News Bar & Grill, where through the window he could watch the freezing storm over the Nicollet Walk. The decor was dark; the ambiance was light: a place where print media met electronic media and they all pretended they were in the same business. Ironically, it was one of the few bars in town that didn’t have a television set staring customers in the face. That was one of the things Rick liked about this hangout. Besides, he was known here. He could relax.

The bar and grill was packed, downtown workers waiting for the weather to break before they ventured home to begin the Christmas holiday. Already the streets were coated with sleet. Cars fishtailed down the block. People slid by the window or just slipped and fell. It wasn’t long before photographer Dave Cadieux and television pioneer Andy Mack ducked in out of the frozen spray. They joined Rick at his table.

“How is it out there?” he asked them.

Cadieux brushed the ice from his hair. “Freezing rain.

Just like the asshole promised.” He threw his coat over the chair. “They’ll be chasing pile-ups all night.” Cadieux was a new breed of news photographer. “Photojournalists” is what they liked to be called. The title was well deserved. They could tape together whole stories without a reporter. In television news it’s not uncommon for the person behind the camera to be smarter and bolder than the person standing in front of it. It was Dave Cadieux who was rolling when the Wakefield boy climbed out of the woods searching in vain for his twin brother. And it was Dave Cadieux who stood atop the tallest building in town and shot the crew of Skyhawk 7 as they chased the Eden Prairie tornado to their doom.

Andy Mack shook the foul weather from his coat in overdramatic fashion. Then he draped the coat over his shoulder like a cape and raised his hand in speech: “Name to thee a man most like this dreadful night; that thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars as doth the lion in the Capitol; a man no mightier than thyself, or me, in personal action; yet prodigious grown, and fearful, as these strange eruptions are.”

Rick beckoned to him. ” ‘Tis the Weatherman you mean, is it not, Mr. Mack?”

“Indeed, they say, the viewers tomorrow mean to establish him as king. I know where I will wear this dagger then.” Andy Mack plunged his fist into his heart and dropped into the chair.

Dave Cadieux thought they sounded like a pair of fools. “What the hell are you two jabbering about?”

“Shakespeare,” Rick told him.

“Yes, and very bad Shakespeare, too.” Andy Mack hung his coat over the chair, sat down and caught his breath. “He’s spooky, Rick. When he first came here I watched him work. I grew up here. I knew more about the weather than anybody in this town until that son of a bitch blew in and knocked me off the air. The guy knows what the weather is going to be.”

Rick shrugged, didn’t buy it. “It’s just a gift he has, like singing, or throwing a baseball.”

“No, that’s talent. This guy is spooky.”

They ordered their drinks. Rick stuck with red wine. The old man combed the few hairs on his head. When the drinks arrived, Andy Mack raised his glass.

“What are we drinking to?” Rick asked.

Andy gave the toast. “Back to the days when men were men, and women didn’t work in the newsroom.” They laughed and drank up.

“I’m sorry,” said Andy Mack, shaking his head in sad resignation, “but I just don’t understand these women today. Take these so-called rape cases in Edina. They say they wake up and find this big guy sitting on their bed, like he blew in with the breeze or something. How many times last year did we do a story about a woman who said she was raped, or kidnapped, only to find out a few days later that she made up the whole damn story?”

Rick raised his fingers. “Three.”

“Three times last year. And they were our lead stories.”

“It’s a tough call,” Rick reminded him. Ice pellets were pinging off the window. The masked producer glanced over his shoulder at the driving sleet. Traffic was backing up. The flashing red lights of an ambulance fought through traffic.

Andy Mack and Dave Cadieux had another round of Christmas cheer. Then another. As the night wore on, the weather wasn’t getting any better, but their stories were.

“What was the most disturbing story you ever covered?” Cadieux asked the old man.

Andy Mack let his mind drift back over the years. “Long time ago, back before abortions were legal, they found a fetus on the sidewalk, like it’d been thrown from a car. And I was standing there looking at it with Catfish Bob-an old photog, he retired years ago-but we could see the little fella’s arms and legs. Next day they found the woman dead in the backseat of a car. She probably got pregnant in that backseat, had an abortion in the backseat, and died in the backseat. When I see an abortion story I always think of that little fella on the sidewalk more than that woman in the backseat.”

Dave Cadieux wiped his chin. “Do you remember about three years ago … this high-school girl had a baby in secret? Strangled it and threw it in a trash can. I was cruising around when I picked the call off my scanner. I got there before the police.”

Andy Mack was incredulous. “And you shot tape of this?”

“Whether I shot tape or not, I had to look at it.”

Rick Beanblossom was enjoying himself, listening to a couple of newsies with a few drinks in them trying to top each other.

Dave Cadieux leaned across the table. He was beginning to slur his words. “Did I ever tell you guys this one? Last summer, remember, a boat full of people goes over St. Anthony Falls. Capsized. Choppers are trying to pick people out of the water. Rescue boats are paddling into the falls. I’m shooting from a choice spot on the Franklin Avenue Bridge. This detective comes my way. I figure he’s gonna chase me off the bridge, so I lower my camera, but I keep it rolling in case it turns into harassment. He says to me, ‘Do you ever watch “Rescue 911″ with William Shatner?’ I say, ‘Sure, what about it?’ He says, ‘I’ve got the producer on the phone. Save your tape, we might be able to work something out.’ ”