What Became of Billy?
Lawrence F. Farrar
It had been twenty years since my little brother disappeared. And now, on a 1970 October day, I found myself on the phone listening to a county sheriff tell me, “We got a fella here just showed up says he’s Billy. Looks to me like he expects to get the reward.”
“And you want me to come up there?” It would be a three-hour drive north from Minneapolis.
“Well, we have doubts if he’s who he says he is. But you might be able to help us figure out if he’s telling the truth. It’s going to take time to check out his story.”
I hesitated. The wound had been opened more than once, with no good result. Did I really want to go through this again? Self-tormenting thoughts laid siege to my mind, to my emotions.
“What’s this guy’s name? Where’s he from?”
“Jerry Baer. Says he’s from somewhere in New Mexico. But he’s moved around. You can get the story when you meet him.”
“Okay, I’ll come up tomorrow, find a motel room, and then stop by your office. Or should I see my great aunt’s lawyer first?”
“Up to you. Of course, he’s the one handling the reward money. But the lawyer can come here, too. We’ll set up a separate meeting with Baer. One o’clock good for you?”
“Yeah. See you then.”
I hung up the phone.
As they had so many times, jolts of memory spewed through my mind. They all propelled me back to that sticky 1950 summer day at Tamarack Lake. I’d just turned thirteen. Along with my mother, my Uncle Bud, and my little brother Billy, I had all been vacationing at my great Aunt Nellie’s old hunting lodge on Tamarack Lake. Recently divorced, my then thirty-five-years-old mother was going through a rough patch. She’d wanted her brother, Bud, to be with us. War had broken out in Korea. Bud had enlisted in the navy and would soon be gone. Both my mom and Bud loved four-year-old Billy. They doted on him. No doubt about it, he was a cute kid.
I’d had an uneasy feeling about the whole trip up to the lake; just felt like something bad might happen. As a result, I’d shown reluctance when my mother asked Uncle Bud and me to take Billy for a walk in the woods. The wet gray sky threatened rain. We agreed to go, but we wanted to make it quick. As we moved down a forest trail, Billy dawdled. He stopped to pick flowers. He collected stones. He pursued a stump full of maggots with a stick. I can still conjure him up in my mind’s eye. Tousled blond hair, a seersucker sun suit, and little blue shoes.
“Let’s go, Billy,” Bud said. It’s going to rain.”
“No.”
Bud gave me a conspiratorial look and said, “let’s teach him a lesson.”
I nodded, and we took off running back down the trail and found a place to hide. It had been an impetuous decision, one that crossed the borderline of good sense. We expected Billy to come looking for us. But minutes slipped by, and he didn’t show up. Beset by clouding apprehension, we rushed back to where we’d left him. He’d vanished. We searched frantically, without success. Parties of volunteers sloshed through the woods for days in a pounding rain. No luck. Months after the disappearance, a forester’s dog turned up with a little blue shoe. I recognized it as Billy’s. Another round of searching ensued, again without result. In the meantime, my mother had broken down and blamed Bud and me for what happened. And, consumed with guilt, I knew she was right. We’d lost her little Billy.
It became a burden I would always carry. The feeling only intensified when my mother passed away with the question of what happened to Billy still unresolved. She’d rejected all my efforts at reconciliation. I did my best to suppress my feelings of guilt and to get on with my life. But I felt marked for my part in what happened, as if I carried an invisible brand. Who could trust me? Who could I trust? Perhaps that is why I never married.
Now, all these years later, the sheriff’s call had shaken me. If he’d somehow survived, my little brother would be in his mid-twenties. It seemed improbable he’d been found. But my hopes mounted. I had read of such cases. Consumed by an embedded sense of responsibility, I wanted the claimant’s story to be true. I knew I shouldn’t live in the past, but memory and events drew me back. It’s a cliché, but I yearned for some kind of closure. Resolving the mystery would, at least in some measure, be like an exculpatory ticket of atonement. I had to try.
~ ~ ~
The next day I slipped on a crewneck sweater, tossed a jacket on the car seat, and headed north on the old interstate. Autumn was upon us. And the foliage blazed in full color, a burgeoning exuberance of yellows, oranges, and reds.
A great deal had changed since those traumatic days in 1950. The roads had been improved, and communities along the way seemed more built up. Surely, I, too, had changed. I’d been a scrawny thirteen-year-old; I would soon turn thirty-five. I’d transitioned from long hair to a crew cut to not much hair at all. I’d now worn glasses for years, and my once slim-waisted self was no longer slim-waisted. I could not imagine how Billy might have been transformed.
Unlike neighboring communities, Tamarack Crossing had changed little in twenty years. It remained a small town where, most of the time, people did nothing much at all. Main Street featured the sheriff’s office, two bars, a building housing a law firm and a real estate company, a bait shop, a hardware store, a family restaurant, a gas station, a motel, and a general store. Those structures had seen better days. A dozen faded one-story houses and a Lutheran church lined a gravel street one block over. The town lived off fishing, hunting, camping, and a modest amount of farming.
When I arrived and stopped at the Mobile Station for gas, Sigurd Tanum, the leather-faced proprietor, said, “I expect you’re up here about the reward. Was just in the Tamarack Valley News. Had your picture and everything. Says you’re still a professor down at the university. Everybody in town knows the story. I personally think it was one of those no-accounts from over on the reservation took him.”
The reward he referred to had been posted by my Great Aunt Nellie after Billy disappeared. She, too, was long dead, and the reward, if not successfully claimed in fifteen years, would run out the following week. If Billy’s fate had not soon been determined, the money, now $35,000 would be handed over to the North State Animal Rescue League.
I reminded Tanum the folks on the reservation, along with many others, had all been investigated. And when he asked, I said, yes, I knew a claimant had come forward.
It puzzled me when Tanum leaned into the car window, lowered his voice, and said, “I hear there’s people around here don’t want this all stirred up again.”
“What do you mean?”
He smiled. “Gives the place a bad name.” Then, he walked away.
A few minutes later, I checked in at the Blue Ox Motel, the only lodging place in town. Like a 1950s throwback, it featured beige wood paneling, patterned wallpaper, pastel bedspreads and drapes, and an abundance of chrome and vinyl. The place seemed run down. But, then, it had always seemed run down.
Even before I’d completed the registration form, the manager delivered a knowing look from behind the counter. “Well, Professor Cooper, I expect you’re up here about that imposter.”
“What makes you think he’s an imposter?”
“Come on. Everybody knows your brother must have drowned in the Tamarack River.”
“You know we never found him.”
“Just the same, that’s what folks around here have believed for years.”
“Well, thanks for your thoughts. Now, I’d like to check in.”
Indeed, drowning had been the most common theory. But there had been others. Our estranged father had been a suspect, later ruled out. Dead, these many years, he’d been in Elko, Nevada when Billy vanished. Some people thought a stranger wandering in the woods had snatched my brother. Others contended he’d gone deep into a swampy area, got lost, and died there. Most hurtful, a few implied that Uncle Bud and I must be responsible.
After checking out my room, I left the Blue Ox and walked across the street to Sheriff Buzbee’s office. I’d known Hector Buzbee for as long as I could remember. Now in his sixties, gray-haired, and round-faced, he boasted an eye-catching walrus mustache. His gun belt failed to contain a paunch that pushed out against his khaki shirt. As far as I knew, he’d never drawn his weapon. Everybody liked him. He was a grandfatherly figure. Good heartedness embraced him like a halo.
He and Ed Merrill, my great aunt’s executor, greeted me in the office. A man in his seventies, Merrill was tall, immaculate in appearance, and had close-cropped white hair. Clean-shaven, he had vigorous white eyebrows set above dark blue eyes. He wore slacks, an open collared shirt, and a blazer. He was always courteous, always thoughtful, and always unflappable. I believed he would have prospered with a large city law firm, but he declared he preferred being a “country lawyer.”
We all shook hands, then Merrill, an old family friend, and I occupied wooden chairs in front of Buzbee’s desk. The Sheriff sat behind his desk, flanked by an American flag and a photo of President Nixon. He offered me a slug of Old Crow whiskey from a pint bottle and said, “Baer says he’ll come in tomorrow morning. It’s just as well. I figured it would be good for the three of to get together beforehand.” The Sheriff passed the bottle to Ed Merrill.
I’d been aware the deadline for withdrawing the reward offer had been fast approaching. We talked about past efforts by people to claim the reward. None had provided creditable information. But until now, nobody had actually claimed to be Billy either. We agreed it seemed highly unlikely that this fellow was telling the truth. But Merrill said we should hear him out. And I agreed. This, of course, was years before we’d heard the term, DNA. If Merrill rejected his claim, Baer might try going to court, but that seemed unlikely.
The meeting ended, and I decided to drive out to Tamarack Lake, to the place where it had all happened years before. The gravel road leading to the lodge had fallen into disuse and proved to be a bit challenging. I arrived at the site in mid-afternoon.
Long since fallen prey to vandals and arsonists, the lodge had been reduced to mounds of dreary burnt-out wreckage. Clinging to a scorched frame, a charred door creaked in the breeze. I’d been out there three or four times over the years. I suppose I’d always hoped to discover some clue, some indication of where Billy had gone. This time, I noticed a large printed sign describing the property as the site of a soon-to-be “fashionable” lakeside condo project. The unfelled trees would be gone, and groomed trails would likely meander back along the wetlands.
I clambered down to the lake to where the dock once stood. Long cool shadows drifted across the water, but I made out three new houses on the other side. I stood there looking out as a sharp breeze ruffled across the lake. A pair of loons skimmed low over the water, their plaintiff yodels trailing behind them. Waves lapped against the shore. Here Bud and I had returned from fishing shortly before we took Billy into the woods. Here the snapping turtles had reared their ugly snouts the day we lost him. I’d experienced a chill of unease that day. And I experienced one now.
It seemed likely I would never return to this place. So, I decided to revisit the twisted trail where Billy had disappeared. I suppose it amounted to a forlorn gesture. When I crossed the lodge clearing and went up the road, I could barely determine where the trail branched off into the woods. The forest beyond the clearing was a dark wet place. Fallen leaves engulfed rotted logs and branches that littered the ground. My boots made soft, sucking sounds as I squelched through the muddy undergrowth. I penetrated only fifteen yards or so and realized I could go no farther.
Save for the buzzing of mosquitos and the croaking of frogs, silence prevailed. The scent of pine I’d anticipated had given place to sodden odors of things decayed and things decaying. I retreated and lingered at the edge of the road. Washed in regret, as I so often had, I felt my search for Billy had probably ended. The flicker of hope I’d felt when the sheriff called was only that, a flicker. I sought to lower my expectations Unrewarded hope can be painful. I wanted to avoid disappointment.
~ ~ ~
The sheriff had alerted Merrill that his ongoing investigation would likely prove Baer to be a fraud. Nonetheless, we met the man who said he was Billy in the attorney’s office. “Just to be sure,” Merrill said.
Florid-faced and unkempt. Baer sat directly across from me. Greasy shoulder-length hair, boots, jeans, and an old sweatshirt. He looked like a clerk out of a creepy hotel. I studied his face. Lightly bearded and hollow cheeked, he was about the right age. When I asked if he could remove his glasses, he hesitated, then complied. I could not see Billy’s face, but neither could I discount the fact that people change with time. Billy’s ears had protruded a bit, and so did Baer’s.
“Do you know who I am?” I said.
“Yes. You’re the one who left me in the woods. I was scared. You ran away.” Twangy-voiced, he had a nervous little laugh.
“What’s my name?”
“You’re Paul. You’re my Uncle Paul.”
“What do you remember from when you were little?”
“I know we were staying in a cabin by a lake. It all went away when I got lost.”
He seemed offended that I would even ask such questions. The replies that followed were unresponsive, marked by evasiveness. Said he’d been raised on a farm in New Mexico by a woman who wasn’t his mother. She told him he’d been “taken.” Didn’t know how he came to be there. Just that he’d been brought to the farm by someone from up north. His foster mother’s cousin had called from Wisconsin to tell her about the reward. She figured he must be the one they were looking for. Drove right up. He kept referring to me by my first name, as if this was a symbol of authenticity.
My doubts had been confirmed. He was a fraud. His dishonesty blatant, Baer could not disguise his discomfort. He’d said nothing he could not have derived from newspaper accounts. He’d caused us to waste our time with his pathetic attempted con.
“No need to go on,” I said. “You’re not Billy.”
Merrill and I exchanged looks. “You can go,” Merrill said. “If you show your face around here again, your next meeting will be with the sheriff. And it won’t be to discuss any reward.”
The would-be-Billy got to his feet and shambled toward the door. “I could go to court, you know.” He paused. “But maybe for $100 I could forget about it.” Perhaps extracting a payment to be rid of him as a nuisance had been his malformed motive from the outset.
“Get out,” Merrill said.
Afterward, Merrill apologized to me. “Sorry to have dragged you up here. Should have vetted this guy further, but time was running out. You were the only one left who knew the boy.”
An hour later, Sheriff Buzbee reported that Baer was an itinerant roofer who’d been encouraged in his failed deception by a waitress he met in a roadside drive-in.
I felt both disappointed and relieved. Disappointed I had not found Billy. Relieved that this guy wasn’t him.
~ ~ ~
Merrill and I had lunch at Maggie’s Hometown Café (six counter stools and four tables). Maggie ran the place like the WAC she had once been. No backtalk and everything in order. Even Ed Merrill trembled before her. After slices of Maggie’s pecan pie, we chatted over a second cup of coffee. We’d reviewed Billy’s disappearance so many times that it now came up only indirectly. Merrill said he planned to notify the animal charity folks they would be able to claim the money within the next few days. For him, the story had ended. For me, it would never end, not completely.
Merrill began to spin tales of the old days: about when twenty or so hunters would occupy the dormitory-like second floor of Nellie’s lodge at night, all snoring in chorus; about the night one of them got trapped in the outhouse by a pack of wolves; about the time . . . I’d endured all these stories before, more than once. I thanked Merrill for his help and said I had to be on my way.
Just then, Sheriff Buzbee marched up to our table. “Glad I caught you fellows,” he said.
We delivered quizzical looks. We’d already said our goodbyes.
“Well, as the ballplayer says, “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over,” Buzbee said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean we’ve got another person wants to talk about your brother.”
“Another wannabe?”
“Nope. A witness. Wants to tell us what she knows. What happened. Her name is Wilma Tollefson.”
Merrill appeared to be baffled. “Who? Never heard of her.”
“Not likely you would,” Buzbee said. “I expect she moves in different circles. Lives on what’s left of a farm, a couple miles north of town. It’s a rundown place. She’s kind of an odd duck. Husband passed away nearly thirty years ago. Been living up there in that old house all by herself since her adult son also died quite a few years back. Not sure how reliable anything she might have to say will be.”
“I supposed she’s interested in the reward,” Merrill said.
“Funny thing is she hasn’t said a word yet about the money. Could be some kind of crime involved here. I warned her about self-incrimination. Not sure if she understood.”
“Sounds like another crank to me,” I said. “I’ve already sat through one useless interview.”
“Well, she’s been hanging round outside my office all morning. One more thing,” the sheriff added. “She’s got this shoe. A little kid’s shoe.
“What color is it?” I asked.
“It’s pretty dirty and beat up, but I guess you’d say blue.”
Merrill and I got to our feet. “Let’s go,” I said. There was urgency in my voice.
Fifteen minutes later at the sheriff’s office, we stood before a one-way glass peering into an interrogation room. In that room, Wilma Tollefson, a coarse, red-faced, delipidated woman of uncertain age sat before a small table manipulating an empty paper cup and staring into space. She had fish-damp eyes and appeared to be missing several teeth. She wore an ill-fitting flowered dress with all the character of a burlap sack, topped by a ragged dark blue sweater. From time to time she sniffled and then wiped her nose with the back of her hand. We struggled not to laugh when she reached under her sweater for a vigorous round of scratching. It must have been a pesky itch.
“That’s our informant?” I said. “Really?” I doubted there could be a story here, one waiting to be heard.
“You two can’t sit in on an interrogation,” Buzbee said. “But she wants to talk to ‘the lawyer and the uncle.’ So, I chased a deputy out of his office. You can meet her there.”
The sheriff guided Wilma into the deputy’s office and introduced us. Merrill took the seat behind the desk, and Wilma and I sat on two facing chairs. I suspected she’d attempted to disguise the fact of no recent bath with liberal dollops of cheap perfume. She’d failed. I slid my chair to one side.
“I remember it clear as can be,” she began “We’d heard a child had gone missing, and folks were volunteering to go looking for him. They said he might be out in the marsh or maybe down toward the river. Maybe over toward the lake. You know there was a lot of places he could be.”
I wanted to get right to the heart of things, but Merrill said we should let her tell her story in her own way.
“Is it okay for me to smoke?” the woman asked.
Merrill nodded. Much to my surprise, she produced a pipe, tamped down the tobacco, and lighted it with a wooden match.
“Anyways,” she said, “some of the folks around where we lived went over to join the search. Even my son, Norman offered to help out. There’re some people thought Norm wasn’t quite right. But I have to tell you, he was good-hearted, and it kinda hurt him when one of the deputies told him to stay home and keep an eye out for anything unusual. Well, Norm put on a yellow slicker, dragged out an old rocker, and sat there on the porch, rain just pounding down. Said he was keeping an eye out.”
Wilma took a draw on her pipe and then launched into a coughing spell.
Merrill fetched her a cup of water. While she gulped it down, her narrative stopped. So far, I’d learned nothing. After all, I’d been one of the searchers.
“Well, it was getting dark and the rain kept coming on down,” she said. But Norman was still on the porch performing his duty. And I heard him call, ‘Ma, come on out here.’”
“Well, I went straight out. And Norm was pointed across the road toward Frank Burleigh’s place. Sure as hell, something was going on over there. Didn’t surprise me. Frank Burleigh was a no account drunk. Beat up his wife until she left town. Surprised the hell out of me when I heard later he’d been one of the ones hunting for the boy.”
“What was it you saw?” I asked.
“Well, like I said, the light wasn’t too good. But it sure looked like Frank was leading a small child up a path towards his storm cellar.”
“Leading?” Merrill said.
“Maybe more like pulling.”
“And, then?”
“Before I could lay a hand on him, my boy hopped right off the porch and said, ‘I have to see what’s going on. It’s my job. Deputy told me.’ He went running right across the road toward Burleigh’s house.”
I now paid close attention to the woman’s narrative. We’d crossed into new territory. No information like this had surfaced before.
Wilma continued. “Norman should have hung back, but Burleigh spotted him. Signaled my boy to come on over to the house. Well, Norman edged up closer, and he seen we’d been right. Burleigh had a little kid by the hand. Kid was crying.”
“What did Burleigh say?” I said. “What did your son do?”
Merrill cautioned me again. “Let her talk.”
Wilma guzzled another cup of water, then resumed her story. “When Norm came back, he said Burleigh told him he’d found the boy in the woods, not far from his own place. Said the boy was crouched under a tree, soaking wet in the rain. Didn’t know how he got there, but there he was. Brought him over to let him warm up. Didn’t have no phone. Said he was going to take the kid back to his family soon as he could. His car was broke down, and it was getting dark. Figured they’d have to walk.”
“Couldn’t he have asked for a ride from one of your other neighbors?” Merrill said.
“Wasn’t any neighbor close-by with a car in those days. But I’ll tell you one thing, “Burleigh was a born liar. Couldn’t tell what to believe. Anyhow, when Norm came back, I said maybe I should go over there and try to help the little guy out. Maybe take him some hot soup. But Norman said Frank Burleigh told him we should mind our own business, if we knew what was good for us. I’ve got to admit that made me kind of nervous.”
“Why would he say that?” I said. “Seems to me he would have appreciated some help.”
“We figured he thought there’d be a reward; didn’t want anybody else getting any credit for finding the boy. He was a mean man. We decided to keep our mouths shut. Still, we kept watching the house. It was dark by now. But as far as we could tell, Burleigh and the boy never come out. We figured we must have missed them.”
At this point, Merrill and I hung on every word. At times Wilma mumbled which made that a challenging task.
“I finally gave up and turned in,” Wilma went on. “But Norman stayed out there on the porch, just watching. Sure enough, was barely getting to be morning, and he come in and shook my arm. ‘Ma, you gotta see this,’ he said.”
“See what?”
“'Just hurry up,' he said.”
“So, I swung out of bed and went straight to the porch. It looked like Frank was carrying something slung over his shoulder, heading out toward the back of his barn. You couldn’t be sure because it was wrapped in a blanket, but we both figured it had to be that boy. We were sure we knew what was happening when Frank came back a few minutes later and went out again, carrying a shovel.”
“Why in the world didn’t you report this to the authorities? People were searching everywhere,” I said.
“I figured to do just that and was lacing up my boots when there came a banging on the door,” Wilma said. “Norm opened it. Frank was standing there. He was a big man and, like I said, mean-looking. Without so much as a by-your-leave, he pushed right into our parlor.”
"‘I got something to tell you,’ he said. ‘You didn’t see any kid at my house yesterday. Got it?’"
“Norman didn’t understand. He says, ‘But I saw you with that tow-haired boy, and I . . .”
“Frank says, 'That brat tried to run away and had an accident. That’s all I’m gonna say. Except one thing. Either of you opens your mouth, so help me God, I’ll put a pitchfork right through you. Just like I did to your damn dog last spring.’”
“And you believed he meant it? And told no one?” Merrill said.
“Yes, sir. We believed it. We were scared. Knew that boy was still missing. Talked about what to do. Then, that winter Norman went through the ice while he was checking his trap line. He was real good at catching muskrats, you know. Anyway, I was alone then and didn’t want to take no chances. Never said a thing to the sheriff or anybody else.”
“Is that all?” I asked.
“I figure there might be others who knew something, people he’d threatened like us. But I don’t have no idea who they might be. Too many years have passed,” she said.
“Why are you telling us this now?” I said.
“Well, Frank passed last winter, and I heard there was a reward about to run out. Figured I’d put in my claim.”
“Nobody’s asked, so far,” I said. “Where did you get that blue shoe?”
“I don’t rightly know. My son came by it one day clearing brush somewhere. Long time ago. I carry it as a remembrance, you might say.”
What I’d hyped in my mind as a significant clue had taken us nowhere.
~ ~ ~
Even the papers in Minneapolis and Madison covered the story. Sheriff Buzbee organized a team of deputies and county workers, brought in backhoes, and went to work digging up the area behind the barn and beyond. Curious sightseers and local teenagers flocked to the site which deputies marked of with yellow tapes. But, after two weeks of digging and an early snowfall, they’d found nothing.
Maybe Wilma made the whole thing up. Maybe, even if Frank put Billy in the ground that day, he’d moved him later on. In any case, the North State Animal Rescue League accepted a check from Merrill for $35,000. Wilma continued to share her uncorroborated story with reporters until they lost interest. She retreated into her house and was not heard from again.
Hope can be a hurtful thing. I’d hoped for some kind of resolution, however sad or unpleasant it might be. I’d hoped at least to ease, if not erase, the burden I carried. I’d tried to tell myself that this time it would be better; that this time I might find the answer. I had to try, and I did. But, in the end, I concluded there are some things that will always remain a mystery, unexplained things we just cannot know. I’d hoped it was not the case, but it seems that bad choices we make are permanently stitched into the fabric of our lives.
I never went back to Tamarack Lake.
~ ~ ~
Sept 2026
Lawrence F. Farrar
It had been twenty years since my little brother disappeared. And now, on a 1970 October day, I found myself on the phone listening to a county sheriff tell me, “We got a fella here just showed up says he’s Billy. Looks to me like he expects to get the reward.”
“And you want me to come up there?” It would be a three-hour drive north from Minneapolis.
“Well, we have doubts if he’s who he says he is. But you might be able to help us figure out if he’s telling the truth. It’s going to take time to check out his story.”
I hesitated. The wound had been opened more than once, with no good result. Did I really want to go through this again? Self-tormenting thoughts laid siege to my mind, to my emotions.
“What’s this guy’s name? Where’s he from?”
“Jerry Baer. Says he’s from somewhere in New Mexico. But he’s moved around. You can get the story when you meet him.”
“Okay, I’ll come up tomorrow, find a motel room, and then stop by your office. Or should I see my great aunt’s lawyer first?”
“Up to you. Of course, he’s the one handling the reward money. But the lawyer can come here, too. We’ll set up a separate meeting with Baer. One o’clock good for you?”
“Yeah. See you then.”
I hung up the phone.
As they had so many times, jolts of memory spewed through my mind. They all propelled me back to that sticky 1950 summer day at Tamarack Lake. I’d just turned thirteen. Along with my mother, my Uncle Bud, and my little brother Billy, I had all been vacationing at my great Aunt Nellie’s old hunting lodge on Tamarack Lake. Recently divorced, my then thirty-five-years-old mother was going through a rough patch. She’d wanted her brother, Bud, to be with us. War had broken out in Korea. Bud had enlisted in the navy and would soon be gone. Both my mom and Bud loved four-year-old Billy. They doted on him. No doubt about it, he was a cute kid.
I’d had an uneasy feeling about the whole trip up to the lake; just felt like something bad might happen. As a result, I’d shown reluctance when my mother asked Uncle Bud and me to take Billy for a walk in the woods. The wet gray sky threatened rain. We agreed to go, but we wanted to make it quick. As we moved down a forest trail, Billy dawdled. He stopped to pick flowers. He collected stones. He pursued a stump full of maggots with a stick. I can still conjure him up in my mind’s eye. Tousled blond hair, a seersucker sun suit, and little blue shoes.
“Let’s go, Billy,” Bud said. It’s going to rain.”
“No.”
Bud gave me a conspiratorial look and said, “let’s teach him a lesson.”
I nodded, and we took off running back down the trail and found a place to hide. It had been an impetuous decision, one that crossed the borderline of good sense. We expected Billy to come looking for us. But minutes slipped by, and he didn’t show up. Beset by clouding apprehension, we rushed back to where we’d left him. He’d vanished. We searched frantically, without success. Parties of volunteers sloshed through the woods for days in a pounding rain. No luck. Months after the disappearance, a forester’s dog turned up with a little blue shoe. I recognized it as Billy’s. Another round of searching ensued, again without result. In the meantime, my mother had broken down and blamed Bud and me for what happened. And, consumed with guilt, I knew she was right. We’d lost her little Billy.
It became a burden I would always carry. The feeling only intensified when my mother passed away with the question of what happened to Billy still unresolved. She’d rejected all my efforts at reconciliation. I did my best to suppress my feelings of guilt and to get on with my life. But I felt marked for my part in what happened, as if I carried an invisible brand. Who could trust me? Who could I trust? Perhaps that is why I never married.
Now, all these years later, the sheriff’s call had shaken me. If he’d somehow survived, my little brother would be in his mid-twenties. It seemed improbable he’d been found. But my hopes mounted. I had read of such cases. Consumed by an embedded sense of responsibility, I wanted the claimant’s story to be true. I knew I shouldn’t live in the past, but memory and events drew me back. It’s a cliché, but I yearned for some kind of closure. Resolving the mystery would, at least in some measure, be like an exculpatory ticket of atonement. I had to try.
~ ~ ~
The next day I slipped on a crewneck sweater, tossed a jacket on the car seat, and headed north on the old interstate. Autumn was upon us. And the foliage blazed in full color, a burgeoning exuberance of yellows, oranges, and reds.
A great deal had changed since those traumatic days in 1950. The roads had been improved, and communities along the way seemed more built up. Surely, I, too, had changed. I’d been a scrawny thirteen-year-old; I would soon turn thirty-five. I’d transitioned from long hair to a crew cut to not much hair at all. I’d now worn glasses for years, and my once slim-waisted self was no longer slim-waisted. I could not imagine how Billy might have been transformed.
Unlike neighboring communities, Tamarack Crossing had changed little in twenty years. It remained a small town where, most of the time, people did nothing much at all. Main Street featured the sheriff’s office, two bars, a building housing a law firm and a real estate company, a bait shop, a hardware store, a family restaurant, a gas station, a motel, and a general store. Those structures had seen better days. A dozen faded one-story houses and a Lutheran church lined a gravel street one block over. The town lived off fishing, hunting, camping, and a modest amount of farming.
When I arrived and stopped at the Mobile Station for gas, Sigurd Tanum, the leather-faced proprietor, said, “I expect you’re up here about the reward. Was just in the Tamarack Valley News. Had your picture and everything. Says you’re still a professor down at the university. Everybody in town knows the story. I personally think it was one of those no-accounts from over on the reservation took him.”
The reward he referred to had been posted by my Great Aunt Nellie after Billy disappeared. She, too, was long dead, and the reward, if not successfully claimed in fifteen years, would run out the following week. If Billy’s fate had not soon been determined, the money, now $35,000 would be handed over to the North State Animal Rescue League.
I reminded Tanum the folks on the reservation, along with many others, had all been investigated. And when he asked, I said, yes, I knew a claimant had come forward.
It puzzled me when Tanum leaned into the car window, lowered his voice, and said, “I hear there’s people around here don’t want this all stirred up again.”
“What do you mean?”
He smiled. “Gives the place a bad name.” Then, he walked away.
A few minutes later, I checked in at the Blue Ox Motel, the only lodging place in town. Like a 1950s throwback, it featured beige wood paneling, patterned wallpaper, pastel bedspreads and drapes, and an abundance of chrome and vinyl. The place seemed run down. But, then, it had always seemed run down.
Even before I’d completed the registration form, the manager delivered a knowing look from behind the counter. “Well, Professor Cooper, I expect you’re up here about that imposter.”
“What makes you think he’s an imposter?”
“Come on. Everybody knows your brother must have drowned in the Tamarack River.”
“You know we never found him.”
“Just the same, that’s what folks around here have believed for years.”
“Well, thanks for your thoughts. Now, I’d like to check in.”
Indeed, drowning had been the most common theory. But there had been others. Our estranged father had been a suspect, later ruled out. Dead, these many years, he’d been in Elko, Nevada when Billy vanished. Some people thought a stranger wandering in the woods had snatched my brother. Others contended he’d gone deep into a swampy area, got lost, and died there. Most hurtful, a few implied that Uncle Bud and I must be responsible.
After checking out my room, I left the Blue Ox and walked across the street to Sheriff Buzbee’s office. I’d known Hector Buzbee for as long as I could remember. Now in his sixties, gray-haired, and round-faced, he boasted an eye-catching walrus mustache. His gun belt failed to contain a paunch that pushed out against his khaki shirt. As far as I knew, he’d never drawn his weapon. Everybody liked him. He was a grandfatherly figure. Good heartedness embraced him like a halo.
He and Ed Merrill, my great aunt’s executor, greeted me in the office. A man in his seventies, Merrill was tall, immaculate in appearance, and had close-cropped white hair. Clean-shaven, he had vigorous white eyebrows set above dark blue eyes. He wore slacks, an open collared shirt, and a blazer. He was always courteous, always thoughtful, and always unflappable. I believed he would have prospered with a large city law firm, but he declared he preferred being a “country lawyer.”
We all shook hands, then Merrill, an old family friend, and I occupied wooden chairs in front of Buzbee’s desk. The Sheriff sat behind his desk, flanked by an American flag and a photo of President Nixon. He offered me a slug of Old Crow whiskey from a pint bottle and said, “Baer says he’ll come in tomorrow morning. It’s just as well. I figured it would be good for the three of to get together beforehand.” The Sheriff passed the bottle to Ed Merrill.
I’d been aware the deadline for withdrawing the reward offer had been fast approaching. We talked about past efforts by people to claim the reward. None had provided creditable information. But until now, nobody had actually claimed to be Billy either. We agreed it seemed highly unlikely that this fellow was telling the truth. But Merrill said we should hear him out. And I agreed. This, of course, was years before we’d heard the term, DNA. If Merrill rejected his claim, Baer might try going to court, but that seemed unlikely.
The meeting ended, and I decided to drive out to Tamarack Lake, to the place where it had all happened years before. The gravel road leading to the lodge had fallen into disuse and proved to be a bit challenging. I arrived at the site in mid-afternoon.
Long since fallen prey to vandals and arsonists, the lodge had been reduced to mounds of dreary burnt-out wreckage. Clinging to a scorched frame, a charred door creaked in the breeze. I’d been out there three or four times over the years. I suppose I’d always hoped to discover some clue, some indication of where Billy had gone. This time, I noticed a large printed sign describing the property as the site of a soon-to-be “fashionable” lakeside condo project. The unfelled trees would be gone, and groomed trails would likely meander back along the wetlands.
I clambered down to the lake to where the dock once stood. Long cool shadows drifted across the water, but I made out three new houses on the other side. I stood there looking out as a sharp breeze ruffled across the lake. A pair of loons skimmed low over the water, their plaintiff yodels trailing behind them. Waves lapped against the shore. Here Bud and I had returned from fishing shortly before we took Billy into the woods. Here the snapping turtles had reared their ugly snouts the day we lost him. I’d experienced a chill of unease that day. And I experienced one now.
It seemed likely I would never return to this place. So, I decided to revisit the twisted trail where Billy had disappeared. I suppose it amounted to a forlorn gesture. When I crossed the lodge clearing and went up the road, I could barely determine where the trail branched off into the woods. The forest beyond the clearing was a dark wet place. Fallen leaves engulfed rotted logs and branches that littered the ground. My boots made soft, sucking sounds as I squelched through the muddy undergrowth. I penetrated only fifteen yards or so and realized I could go no farther.
Save for the buzzing of mosquitos and the croaking of frogs, silence prevailed. The scent of pine I’d anticipated had given place to sodden odors of things decayed and things decaying. I retreated and lingered at the edge of the road. Washed in regret, as I so often had, I felt my search for Billy had probably ended. The flicker of hope I’d felt when the sheriff called was only that, a flicker. I sought to lower my expectations Unrewarded hope can be painful. I wanted to avoid disappointment.
~ ~ ~
The sheriff had alerted Merrill that his ongoing investigation would likely prove Baer to be a fraud. Nonetheless, we met the man who said he was Billy in the attorney’s office. “Just to be sure,” Merrill said.
Florid-faced and unkempt. Baer sat directly across from me. Greasy shoulder-length hair, boots, jeans, and an old sweatshirt. He looked like a clerk out of a creepy hotel. I studied his face. Lightly bearded and hollow cheeked, he was about the right age. When I asked if he could remove his glasses, he hesitated, then complied. I could not see Billy’s face, but neither could I discount the fact that people change with time. Billy’s ears had protruded a bit, and so did Baer’s.
“Do you know who I am?” I said.
“Yes. You’re the one who left me in the woods. I was scared. You ran away.” Twangy-voiced, he had a nervous little laugh.
“What’s my name?”
“You’re Paul. You’re my Uncle Paul.”
“What do you remember from when you were little?”
“I know we were staying in a cabin by a lake. It all went away when I got lost.”
He seemed offended that I would even ask such questions. The replies that followed were unresponsive, marked by evasiveness. Said he’d been raised on a farm in New Mexico by a woman who wasn’t his mother. She told him he’d been “taken.” Didn’t know how he came to be there. Just that he’d been brought to the farm by someone from up north. His foster mother’s cousin had called from Wisconsin to tell her about the reward. She figured he must be the one they were looking for. Drove right up. He kept referring to me by my first name, as if this was a symbol of authenticity.
My doubts had been confirmed. He was a fraud. His dishonesty blatant, Baer could not disguise his discomfort. He’d said nothing he could not have derived from newspaper accounts. He’d caused us to waste our time with his pathetic attempted con.
“No need to go on,” I said. “You’re not Billy.”
Merrill and I exchanged looks. “You can go,” Merrill said. “If you show your face around here again, your next meeting will be with the sheriff. And it won’t be to discuss any reward.”
The would-be-Billy got to his feet and shambled toward the door. “I could go to court, you know.” He paused. “But maybe for $100 I could forget about it.” Perhaps extracting a payment to be rid of him as a nuisance had been his malformed motive from the outset.
“Get out,” Merrill said.
Afterward, Merrill apologized to me. “Sorry to have dragged you up here. Should have vetted this guy further, but time was running out. You were the only one left who knew the boy.”
An hour later, Sheriff Buzbee reported that Baer was an itinerant roofer who’d been encouraged in his failed deception by a waitress he met in a roadside drive-in.
I felt both disappointed and relieved. Disappointed I had not found Billy. Relieved that this guy wasn’t him.
~ ~ ~
Merrill and I had lunch at Maggie’s Hometown Café (six counter stools and four tables). Maggie ran the place like the WAC she had once been. No backtalk and everything in order. Even Ed Merrill trembled before her. After slices of Maggie’s pecan pie, we chatted over a second cup of coffee. We’d reviewed Billy’s disappearance so many times that it now came up only indirectly. Merrill said he planned to notify the animal charity folks they would be able to claim the money within the next few days. For him, the story had ended. For me, it would never end, not completely.
Merrill began to spin tales of the old days: about when twenty or so hunters would occupy the dormitory-like second floor of Nellie’s lodge at night, all snoring in chorus; about the night one of them got trapped in the outhouse by a pack of wolves; about the time . . . I’d endured all these stories before, more than once. I thanked Merrill for his help and said I had to be on my way.
Just then, Sheriff Buzbee marched up to our table. “Glad I caught you fellows,” he said.
We delivered quizzical looks. We’d already said our goodbyes.
“Well, as the ballplayer says, “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over,” Buzbee said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean we’ve got another person wants to talk about your brother.”
“Another wannabe?”
“Nope. A witness. Wants to tell us what she knows. What happened. Her name is Wilma Tollefson.”
Merrill appeared to be baffled. “Who? Never heard of her.”
“Not likely you would,” Buzbee said. “I expect she moves in different circles. Lives on what’s left of a farm, a couple miles north of town. It’s a rundown place. She’s kind of an odd duck. Husband passed away nearly thirty years ago. Been living up there in that old house all by herself since her adult son also died quite a few years back. Not sure how reliable anything she might have to say will be.”
“I supposed she’s interested in the reward,” Merrill said.
“Funny thing is she hasn’t said a word yet about the money. Could be some kind of crime involved here. I warned her about self-incrimination. Not sure if she understood.”
“Sounds like another crank to me,” I said. “I’ve already sat through one useless interview.”
“Well, she’s been hanging round outside my office all morning. One more thing,” the sheriff added. “She’s got this shoe. A little kid’s shoe.
“What color is it?” I asked.
“It’s pretty dirty and beat up, but I guess you’d say blue.”
Merrill and I got to our feet. “Let’s go,” I said. There was urgency in my voice.
Fifteen minutes later at the sheriff’s office, we stood before a one-way glass peering into an interrogation room. In that room, Wilma Tollefson, a coarse, red-faced, delipidated woman of uncertain age sat before a small table manipulating an empty paper cup and staring into space. She had fish-damp eyes and appeared to be missing several teeth. She wore an ill-fitting flowered dress with all the character of a burlap sack, topped by a ragged dark blue sweater. From time to time she sniffled and then wiped her nose with the back of her hand. We struggled not to laugh when she reached under her sweater for a vigorous round of scratching. It must have been a pesky itch.
“That’s our informant?” I said. “Really?” I doubted there could be a story here, one waiting to be heard.
“You two can’t sit in on an interrogation,” Buzbee said. “But she wants to talk to ‘the lawyer and the uncle.’ So, I chased a deputy out of his office. You can meet her there.”
The sheriff guided Wilma into the deputy’s office and introduced us. Merrill took the seat behind the desk, and Wilma and I sat on two facing chairs. I suspected she’d attempted to disguise the fact of no recent bath with liberal dollops of cheap perfume. She’d failed. I slid my chair to one side.
“I remember it clear as can be,” she began “We’d heard a child had gone missing, and folks were volunteering to go looking for him. They said he might be out in the marsh or maybe down toward the river. Maybe over toward the lake. You know there was a lot of places he could be.”
I wanted to get right to the heart of things, but Merrill said we should let her tell her story in her own way.
“Is it okay for me to smoke?” the woman asked.
Merrill nodded. Much to my surprise, she produced a pipe, tamped down the tobacco, and lighted it with a wooden match.
“Anyways,” she said, “some of the folks around where we lived went over to join the search. Even my son, Norman offered to help out. There’re some people thought Norm wasn’t quite right. But I have to tell you, he was good-hearted, and it kinda hurt him when one of the deputies told him to stay home and keep an eye out for anything unusual. Well, Norm put on a yellow slicker, dragged out an old rocker, and sat there on the porch, rain just pounding down. Said he was keeping an eye out.”
Wilma took a draw on her pipe and then launched into a coughing spell.
Merrill fetched her a cup of water. While she gulped it down, her narrative stopped. So far, I’d learned nothing. After all, I’d been one of the searchers.
“Well, it was getting dark and the rain kept coming on down,” she said. But Norman was still on the porch performing his duty. And I heard him call, ‘Ma, come on out here.’”
“Well, I went straight out. And Norm was pointed across the road toward Frank Burleigh’s place. Sure as hell, something was going on over there. Didn’t surprise me. Frank Burleigh was a no account drunk. Beat up his wife until she left town. Surprised the hell out of me when I heard later he’d been one of the ones hunting for the boy.”
“What was it you saw?” I asked.
“Well, like I said, the light wasn’t too good. But it sure looked like Frank was leading a small child up a path towards his storm cellar.”
“Leading?” Merrill said.
“Maybe more like pulling.”
“And, then?”
“Before I could lay a hand on him, my boy hopped right off the porch and said, ‘I have to see what’s going on. It’s my job. Deputy told me.’ He went running right across the road toward Burleigh’s house.”
I now paid close attention to the woman’s narrative. We’d crossed into new territory. No information like this had surfaced before.
Wilma continued. “Norman should have hung back, but Burleigh spotted him. Signaled my boy to come on over to the house. Well, Norman edged up closer, and he seen we’d been right. Burleigh had a little kid by the hand. Kid was crying.”
“What did Burleigh say?” I said. “What did your son do?”
Merrill cautioned me again. “Let her talk.”
Wilma guzzled another cup of water, then resumed her story. “When Norm came back, he said Burleigh told him he’d found the boy in the woods, not far from his own place. Said the boy was crouched under a tree, soaking wet in the rain. Didn’t know how he got there, but there he was. Brought him over to let him warm up. Didn’t have no phone. Said he was going to take the kid back to his family soon as he could. His car was broke down, and it was getting dark. Figured they’d have to walk.”
“Couldn’t he have asked for a ride from one of your other neighbors?” Merrill said.
“Wasn’t any neighbor close-by with a car in those days. But I’ll tell you one thing, “Burleigh was a born liar. Couldn’t tell what to believe. Anyhow, when Norm came back, I said maybe I should go over there and try to help the little guy out. Maybe take him some hot soup. But Norman said Frank Burleigh told him we should mind our own business, if we knew what was good for us. I’ve got to admit that made me kind of nervous.”
“Why would he say that?” I said. “Seems to me he would have appreciated some help.”
“We figured he thought there’d be a reward; didn’t want anybody else getting any credit for finding the boy. He was a mean man. We decided to keep our mouths shut. Still, we kept watching the house. It was dark by now. But as far as we could tell, Burleigh and the boy never come out. We figured we must have missed them.”
At this point, Merrill and I hung on every word. At times Wilma mumbled which made that a challenging task.
“I finally gave up and turned in,” Wilma went on. “But Norman stayed out there on the porch, just watching. Sure enough, was barely getting to be morning, and he come in and shook my arm. ‘Ma, you gotta see this,’ he said.”
“See what?”
“'Just hurry up,' he said.”
“So, I swung out of bed and went straight to the porch. It looked like Frank was carrying something slung over his shoulder, heading out toward the back of his barn. You couldn’t be sure because it was wrapped in a blanket, but we both figured it had to be that boy. We were sure we knew what was happening when Frank came back a few minutes later and went out again, carrying a shovel.”
“Why in the world didn’t you report this to the authorities? People were searching everywhere,” I said.
“I figured to do just that and was lacing up my boots when there came a banging on the door,” Wilma said. “Norm opened it. Frank was standing there. He was a big man and, like I said, mean-looking. Without so much as a by-your-leave, he pushed right into our parlor.”
"‘I got something to tell you,’ he said. ‘You didn’t see any kid at my house yesterday. Got it?’"
“Norman didn’t understand. He says, ‘But I saw you with that tow-haired boy, and I . . .”
“Frank says, 'That brat tried to run away and had an accident. That’s all I’m gonna say. Except one thing. Either of you opens your mouth, so help me God, I’ll put a pitchfork right through you. Just like I did to your damn dog last spring.’”
“And you believed he meant it? And told no one?” Merrill said.
“Yes, sir. We believed it. We were scared. Knew that boy was still missing. Talked about what to do. Then, that winter Norman went through the ice while he was checking his trap line. He was real good at catching muskrats, you know. Anyway, I was alone then and didn’t want to take no chances. Never said a thing to the sheriff or anybody else.”
“Is that all?” I asked.
“I figure there might be others who knew something, people he’d threatened like us. But I don’t have no idea who they might be. Too many years have passed,” she said.
“Why are you telling us this now?” I said.
“Well, Frank passed last winter, and I heard there was a reward about to run out. Figured I’d put in my claim.”
“Nobody’s asked, so far,” I said. “Where did you get that blue shoe?”
“I don’t rightly know. My son came by it one day clearing brush somewhere. Long time ago. I carry it as a remembrance, you might say.”
What I’d hyped in my mind as a significant clue had taken us nowhere.
~ ~ ~
Even the papers in Minneapolis and Madison covered the story. Sheriff Buzbee organized a team of deputies and county workers, brought in backhoes, and went to work digging up the area behind the barn and beyond. Curious sightseers and local teenagers flocked to the site which deputies marked of with yellow tapes. But, after two weeks of digging and an early snowfall, they’d found nothing.
Maybe Wilma made the whole thing up. Maybe, even if Frank put Billy in the ground that day, he’d moved him later on. In any case, the North State Animal Rescue League accepted a check from Merrill for $35,000. Wilma continued to share her uncorroborated story with reporters until they lost interest. She retreated into her house and was not heard from again.
Hope can be a hurtful thing. I’d hoped for some kind of resolution, however sad or unpleasant it might be. I’d hoped at least to ease, if not erase, the burden I carried. I’d tried to tell myself that this time it would be better; that this time I might find the answer. I had to try, and I did. But, in the end, I concluded there are some things that will always remain a mystery, unexplained things we just cannot know. I’d hoped it was not the case, but it seems that bad choices we make are permanently stitched into the fabric of our lives.
I never went back to Tamarack Lake.
~ ~ ~
Sept 2026
