Page 12 of Guess Again
Nekoosa, Wisconsin Monday, July 7, 2025
EUGENIA MORGAN ARRIVED HOME AND WENT STRAIGHT TO THE bathroom.
She took her time under the cool water of the shower.
She’d had a busy evening and an equally eventful weekend.
She felt like she was dreaming.
In fact, ever since his letter had arrived in her mailbox, she woke each morning worried that her mind had tricked her into believing it was really happening. But this was no fantasy.
Francis’s handwritten letter arrived the week before.
She had written to him many times over the years but had never received a response.
Until last week.
His letter was the first true piece of him she’d ever received.
Everything else Eugenia had collected were trinkets and distant items of him—photos, videos, high school yearbooks, hats, and pieces of clothing others told her had once belonged to him. But the letter was the first thing produced by him. She’d smelled it and touched it and took in as much of him as the single page had to offer. She’d read the letter over and over again, hundreds of times until the sentences had imprinted themselves on her mind and she could recite the entire thing from memory.
In his letter, Francis had explained why he had not answered Eugenia’s many correspondences over the years.
The prison had allowed him to receive mail but had denied him the right to send mail.
Only recently, with years of good behavior and a push by the ACLU, had Francis been granted the right to send letters through the U.S.
mail.
The first letter he penned was to her. And the news he delivered with his words had her positively giddy. He’d placed Eugenia on his approved visitor list and had requested her presence in Boscobel. It was a dream come true.
At the end of her shower, she twisted the faucet to cold and stood for another minute as the icy water cascaded over her body.
When she stepped from the stall, she drip-dried as she ran a brush through her jet-black hair and admired her body in the mirror.
She was thirty-two years old, tall, and firm.
She longed for the day when she could give herself fully to him.
She dressed in silk sleeping shorts and a tank top before heading down to the kitchen where she grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and then opened the door to the basement cellar.
She clicked on the stair well light and headed down the creaky wooden steps.
When she purchased the home, the realtor had tried to avoid showing Eugenia the basement, which consisted of a large unfinished area and a small connecting bedroom.
But Eugenia had immediately seen its potential.
She had spread a plush area rug over the concrete floor in the main area and hung a colorful blanket over one of the bare cinder block walls.
A massive flag covered the second wall.
She’d had the white flag with a single black heart in the center custom made as the perfect complement to her shrine.
The third wall, however, had always been her focus when she came down to the cellar.
Covering that north wall were hundreds of photos of Francis Bernard, along with news articles about the Lake Michigan Massacres from decades before. Mixed in amongst the photos of Francis were the faces of the women who had been killed. There was also a photo of Henry Hall—the police detective Francis had been convicted of killing.
Situated in front of the wall was a desk with a computer.
Eugenia took a seat and shook the mouse to wake the monitor.
“Oh, hello handsome,”
she said when the wallpaper—a close-up image of Francis—popped onto the screen.
“I can’t wait to see you tomorrow.”
She moved the cursor onto a file folder and opened the document to fill out the Wisconsin Department of Corrections forms that were required for visiting inmates in state penitentiaries.
Now that Francis had added her to the list of approved visitors, she should have no problems.
Still, she was meticulous as she filled out the forms.
Prisons were notorious for denying visitation for the smallest infractions, and she was going to make sure nothing stopped her from seeing him.
When she was finished, she printed the forms and placed them in a folder on her desk.
With the paperwork completed, a sense of eagerness warmed her body and converged in a swell that started near her navel and jetted downward.
She stood from the desk and admired the mural she’d created of the handsome and charming Francis Bernard.
Over the years she’d found photos of him from every stage of life.
She had arranged the photos in chronological order, starting with Francis’s childhood and progressing through his high school days. Even back then he was beautiful.
The next grouping of photos was from his time at the University of Chicago, where he played rugby and was active in the debate forum.
She admired the photos of Francis on stage, standing behind a podium and wearing a suit and tie.
They were juxtaposed to photos of him in short shorts and a tight rugby shirt that caused the tingling in her navel to intensify.
Photos of Francis in law school and at his corporate job followed.
Finally, the right side of the wall contained photos of Francis from his trial for the murder of Henry Hall, culminating with his mug shot when he was arrested. Photos of him in an orange jumpsuit at his sentencing were the final images of the mural. The man’s entire life was in front of her. Her therapist called it an obsession. The medical term was hybristophilia. But Eugenia knew she suffered from neither obsession nor a medical condition. She was in love.
She sat down in front of her computer again and pulled up archived videos.
The video she chose tonight was that of Francis Bernard speaking with the judge before his sentencing.
She pressed play and Francis’s voice echoed through the dark cellar as he pleaded his case.
Even his voice was beautiful.
As Eugenia watched the video of the handsome man she loved, she touched the spot on her navel that was now on fire.
She slipped her hand under the waistband of her silk shorts as the video of Francis played.
A soft moan rumbled from her throat.