The Devil's bed

The first bedroom that Nightmare checked contained only a computer desk, computer hardware, and a chair surrounded by shelves of books. Thorsen appeared to have an even more inquisitive nature than Nightmare had realized. In the second bedroom, the bed was neatly made. All of Thorsen’s dirty clothing had been put in a wicker hamper. A paperback copy ofLonesome Dovelay on the nightstand. A makeshift bookmark, the ace of spades from a deck of playing cards, showed that Thorsen was nearly three-quarters finished, almost to the place where Gus bit the dust, a sad but truthful piece of storytelling. Thorsen had a large clothes closet. Half of it was used to hang suits, pants, and shirts. The other half was given over to a respectful housing of the uniform, armor, and sword of kendo, the Japanese art of fencing. Nightmare was intrigued that Thorsen was a man who apparently understood Bushido, the way of the warrior.

In the whole apartment, Thorsen had but two photographs on display, both framed and set on the bureau in the bedroom. The first was a black-and-white blowup of a beautiful woman in a party gown. From the cut of the gown and the style of the woman’s blonde hair, Nightmare judged that the picture had probably been taken in the early 1970s. The picture was remarkable in one very particular way. In her face and in her Nordic build, the woman reminded him of Kathleen Jorgenson Dixon. Nightmare smiled and wondered if Thorsen even realized the similarities.

The second photograph was a shot of an elderly couple with their arms tenderly around each other. In the background stood a barn sporting a new coat of red paint. Nightmare was almost certain there were more pictures somewhere. Everyone had a history, and almost everyone had that history documented in photographs, in certificates and diplomas, in ribbons from high school track meets and medals from the Scouts. Some people kept everything, others very little. But almost everyone kept something. Nightmare discovered Thorsen’s history in a big cardboard box under the bed.

Nightmare sat on the floor and removed the lid from the box. Thorsen at first appeared to have come from a large family. A lot of the photographs were of kids, adolescents mostly, and the same couple and the same red barn framed on Thorsen’s bureau. The kids didn’t look at all alike. Some were blond, some redheaded, some raven-haired. They were tall and short, and their skins were of different tones and colors. Deeper in the box, Nightmare found more photographs of the woman in the gown whose picture sat on the bureau. In one, she had her arm around a kid who looked like Thorsen. Below those photos was a collection of articles cut from newspapers. They were about the murder of a St. Paul woman named Helen Lingenfelter. Although not particularly flattering, the photos that ran with the articles were of the same woman who had her arm around Thorsen. The newspaper stories mentioned a son, Bo, fourteen years of age, but no husband. Also in the box lay a document officially granting Bo Joseph Lingenfelter a legal change of name to Bo Harold Thorsen. Nightmare now understood the large family of disparate appearance. Thorsen had probably been taken into some kind of foster home after his mother’s death.

Beneath the change of name, Nightmare came across a certificate of valor awarded to Thorsen by the U.S. Secret Service. Near the bottom of the box was a packet of letters bound together with string. They were all sent by the same woman, someone named Robin, from a D.C. address. They chronicled a distant courtship dance that ended when, in her final communication, the woman claimed to agree with Thorsen that a relationship was impossible for two people dedicated to a career in the Secret Service. The postmarks were nearly a decade old.

The final item Nightmare drew out was an old sheet of lined, three-hole paper, the kind a kid might have had in a high school notebook. Carefully centered on the paper and written in capital block letters were three observations.

1. THE WORLD IS HARD. BE STRONG.

2. LOVE IS FOR ONLY A FEW. DON’T EXPECT IT.

3. LIFE ISN’T FAIR. BUT SOME PEOPLE ARE. BE ONE OF THEM.

Nightmare wasn’t certain of the significance, but he appreciated the sentiments. He put everything back into the box in the way he’d found it and returned the box to its place under Thorsen’s bed. Then he sat down to consider what he’d learned.