The Witch of Grandad Bluff: Jess Thornton Detective, #1

By Jess Thornton

Jess Thornton, in his self-penned adventure set in La Crosse Wisconsin, his home town, is within a weird tale indeed! From his high rise office in the Hoeschler building, to Pettibone Island, and to his best friend's place on Indian Hill on the north side, Jess travels around the whole city of La Crosse, trying to save a man who he thinks may be drowned.

But, as time goes on, and as his friend Alexander Blackdeer guides him and helps him in his detecting, he realizes that the plot is far more sinister than just a disappearing middle-aged man, and that there is a supernatural element involved- and an ancient evil that has somehow come to this small river city. 

Only he and his friend, the warrior Alexander could possibly hope to cope with such ancient sorcery, unleashed on God's country in La Crosse, Wisconsin!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jess Thornton
• Release date: Sep 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386975731

Jess Thornton

Jess Eden Thornton is the author of several books on family, the post office past and present, and Americana.  His writings espouse traditional family values, while displaying the underlying humor in the family, neighborhood, and of working life. He also has written a few fantasy stories, one in collaboration with Robert E. Howard, the inventor of Conan. He resides in the driftless region of Wisconsin, deep in an isolated coulee.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

For White Buffalo Calf Pipe Woman

CHAPTER ONE

First Impressions

The rain just wouldn’t stop coming, puddling on the green grass and running in streams down the curbside.  I was looking out my office window, high in the skyscraper in which I had rented.  The top floor.  ‘I really was rising in the world,’ I thought.  There was a knock at my door.

I set my red tennis shoes down on the floor from where they had been resting atop my old desk.  I stood, still listening to the pounding of the falling rain on the large, art deco-styled window frame in the wall, opening the heavy wooden door, with its old-fashioned frosted glass center.  I still got a thrill when I saw my name lettered on it in black- Jess Thornton- Private Detective.  I always thought the smoking revolver underneath made a nice statement.

It was a woman standing there.  She would have been quite attractive, if she had had a shred of a smile.  She didn’t.  I need to hire you- my husband has disappeared. 

She looked at me, all at once taking in my dashing blue Brewer’s cap, and no doubt noting appreciatively the huge breadth of my shoulders as she looked me up and down.  I waited for her gasp of delight when she noted my red tennies, and smiled in anticipation.  It never came.

"You are the detective, I take it?" she said, rather more disappointed than delighted.  Ah, well- some cannot appreciate the subtle statement of being shabby chic...

I am, madam, I said, removing my hat and hanging it on the wall hanger.  Please have a seat, I said, indicating the old wooden chair that stood on the other side of my equally ancient wooden desk.  My cigar, which was curling off aromatic plumes of fine tobacco smoke, nestled in a large green ashtray of cut glass. 

She looked at the cigar, and then the chair, as if they were twin poisonous serpents,  and then looking at me with a look of quiet disgust and disappointment. (I know, I find it hard to believe myself).  Then she turned, and left the office, leaving the door wide open.  I watched as her expensively-dressed backside hastily went down the hall to the elevator, and picked up my cigar.  I took a long, deliberate couple of puffs.  Wonderful!

‘A Cubs fan, perhaps?’ I thought.

WALKING TO THE DOOR, I gently closed it.  The rain kept pounding against the large window, that same window that was on the top floor of my downtown La Crosse, Wisconsin office building.  I’d  thought that I had it made when I rented it, just a few months back; moving in from an upstairs office on Caledonia street on the north side of town.  And, in a way, I had- this building was a beautiful, Art Deco building constructed in 1941 by Franklin Hoeschler- The Hoeschler Exchange Building.  I loved it, and after all- I was really up high!

However, I did need to make the rent, and if all of my clients reacted as had this last one, I would soon be in financial jeopardy- just then the phone rang.  I lifted the receiver, and listened intently, something we detectives do very well.  Aromatic smoke enveloped my head, to my joy.

I apologize, said a female voice.  "It was just that- that cigar, and that old-fashioned office, and, well, you are too young for such a position..."  she trailed off.  I smiled freely, knowing that she was safe from my animal magnetism, being out of the room. 

That’s all right, ma’am, I said.  Many say I was just born old, since I appreciate things that most of my peers do not, such as old architecture, fine cigars, and old automobiles, amongst other things.  I refrained from saying old women since this lady was at least 35, probably 10 years older than myself, but, if truth were to be told, that was true as well.

She sighed.  Well, the fact is, I need help.  My friend Rita told me you helped her immensely, and that was why I came to you.

I remembered Rita, and the random attacks that she had been subject to- until I made them stop.  I had always thought that maybe I had used a little too much force, though.

Well then, I said.  Just what is the problem? 

AFTER getting off the phone with Ms. Joni McClellan, I was driving down to Riverside Park.  Such a pleasure, driving my 1950 Packard 8 sedan, a beautiful old car with a deep shade of dark green.  As I had said to Ms. McClellan- ‘I do love fine, old vintage things’!

The rain pounded on my windshields; I say it in the plural since the windshields of those days were separated by a line of sheet metal in the middle, joining the two panels.  The wipers were on fast, since I only had the choice of two- fast or slow.  Actually, fast worked just fine, especially since I only had a few blocks to drive.  I turned left on State Street, just by the post office, and continued down towards the park.

I was engaged to Paul for over a year, and we married last fall, she had said on the phone.  She kind of broke up then, and I said ‘there there’, or maybe I just waited for her to get over it.  I’m sure I puffed on my cigar, and looked out again at the rain, two things I am very good at.  Paul McClellan is his name, from a very prominent family indeed in the area, I’m sure you’ve heard of them? she asked. 

I hadn’t.  My own acquaintance within the circles of the Coulee Region as La Crosse is known was hardly amongst the elite.  I sometimes crossed paths with some of those of that persuasion, but they were not of my milieu, which was rather, how shall I put it, more bluish in their collars, not their blood.  I like to spend time with those who actually work for a living.  Tradesmen- carpenters, plumbers, mailmen- you get the idea.  Actual workers.  People who sweat.

I knew Ms. Joni McClellan and her type.  Her type was definitely Paul McClellan.  He was from an old money sort of family; and while I have nothing against any of that type- (heck, Franklin Hoeschler, the dentist-turned real estate mogul who had built the building in which my office resided had been of that type, God bless him)- still, his type was not my type.  As an ex-logger, apple orchard worker, and with a brief stint as a mixed martial artist- well, none of my money had ever been old.  It didn’t stay around long enough to become that.

She had told me that she and ‘her Paulie’ had been out to dine at The Charmant, a boutique hotel and dining establishment built in 1898, and remodeled from the former candy factory that it had once been.  I knew it well, since it was but a few blocks from my skyscraper of an office.  Many was the brandy old-fashioned I had consumed within its walls, along with my colleagues- those largely blue-collar workers I have mentioned previously.  But there were others that went there as well, of a more refined vintage.

"We had finished a wonderful dinner with the Andreason’s- Max Andreason of the Andreason car dealership, I’m sure you know it.  Ms. McClellan’s eyes had fluttered with actual delight.  The Chateaubriand- it is to die for- right up there with the prime rib at the Freighthouse down the road!"

"Well, after we had finished, Max invited Paulie out for a stroll out front- you know, down in Riverside Park?"  I did indeed.  Everyone in the Coulee Region knew all about the beautiful Riverside Park, an on-the-banks of the Mississippi River park that had been the focal point of downtown La Crosse since it had been built in 1911. 

"Well, Margie Andreason and I chatted over our profiteroles, which is one of their premier desserts- have you tried it?  I had not.  Well, you should- Pearl Street vanilla ice cream after all, with a divine hot chocolate sauce- but anyway, we just waited and waited!"

I had waited here myself, contentedly blowing clouds of wonderful smoke skywards into my high office ceiling, waiting for Ms. Joni McClellan to continue with her divine, endless dinner.  I waited, but she did not continue.

And what happened? I asked, finally.  She broke into sudden tears.

"Nothing!" she sobbed over the phone.  "We waited and waited, and they never came back!  I had to pay the check myself, and I am hopeless with money and cards and things!"

I waited, again.  Both Paul and Max never came back? 

She sniffled, and then finally continued in a small voice.  "Well, Max showed up.  He came home that night, and told Margie that he and Paul got into an argument- and he, Max, had just walked on home, he was so angry.  They live right on Ebner Coulee Road, so it was quite a hike for him, but he said it felt good to ‘blow off the steam’. 

Did Margie call you to tell you this? I asked.

Well, no- after I went home, I was so upset, I just went to bed.  When I woke up the next morning, with no Paulie there- I called the police!  They said they’d look around, but assured me that he was probably just ‘horsing around’.  Then, I called Margie- she told me what Max had said.  She seemed as surprised as I was that Paul hadn’t come home yet!  She started crying again.

I will look into it, I said, and hung up.  Histrionics are not my thing, not at all.

I parked my car next to the old cannon by the levee in Riverside Park.  I knew it was there in memorial of World War 1, but it looked way older- more like a Revolutionary War cannon, one of those that