John Doe No. 2 and the Dreamland Motel

22 The Girl Can’t Help It

22 The Girl Can’t Help It As Timothy McVeigh drives along the interstate—leaving the quiet streets of Cairo and its stealthy posse of federal agents in your wake—your blood brother becomes increasingly wary about heading in the direction of the Sooner State. At least just yet. “It’s code red, dude,” says Timothy McVeigh as he steers the Pontiac along the Great River Road, with the murky Mississippi streaming by in the moonlight. “We need to find a place to hunker down for a few days and sort this shit out.” You know just the place, you tell your partner. The very place where no one would think to ferret you out. A s d aw n b r e a k s o v e r t h e M i s s i s s i p p i , Timothy McVeigh motors into Hannibal, Missouri, pop. 18,004. And while your blood brother is locked in a desperate search for a hideout, you have other things on your mind entirely. You are hoping to be reunited with your lost ballerina love. You are in search of Gina—and the chance, slim as it may be—to recast your fate. The destiny that you divined, that you thwarted, some thirteen months ago in a fit of passion and misplaced jealousy. The very same 184 J o h n D o e N o . 2 a n d t h e D r e a m l a n d M o t e l mangled destiny that sent you spiraling into a life of crime. That sent you into the arms of Timothy McVeigh. Driving across the pristine, oak-lined streets of Hannibal, your partner stops at a convenience store so that you can locate the Watsons’ address in the local white pages. While Timothy McVeigh soothes his aching nerves with a cherry Slurpee, you glance absentmindedly at the newsstand. “Mississippi Ratifies Thirteenth Amendment,” reads the headline. What is this—1865? Have we gone back in time? you wonder to yourself. The old Watson place is nestled on stately Hill Street. Not too far—as the crow flies—from the “Unsinkable” Molly Brown Museum and a converted house called the Gilded Age Inn. Whatever that means. As you pull into the Watsons’ circular driveway, a wintry wind is whipping up the front yard, the weeping willows swaying to and fro. You knock on the house’s massive, oaken door as Timothy McVeigh paces near the station wagon, glancing this way and that for the Federales. They never materialize, of course, but that doesn’t stop your partner from being on high alert. From drifting toward the nightmare scenario of DEFCON 1. A gray-haired, pencil-thin woman pulls opens the heavy wooden door. She is wearing a formless, light blue dress with a belt loosely cinched about the waist. She has a pale and bloodless complexion— perhaps the palest and most bloodless complexion you’ve ever seen. It’s none other than Regina Watson—the original Gina, you think to yourself, the pre-Gina Gina—who lost her husband, a riverboat captain, when your pretty ballerina was only twelve years old. Which makes her the Widow Watson, for all intents and purposes, of Hannibal , Missouri. Captain Watson’s untimely demise left young Regina to raise her daughter on her own. And raise her she did—with the finest of Quaker upbringings and living the good life in the historic district. And there you are: wearing your Good Humor outfit, complete with your Carolina Panthers cap. And in the background, marching The Girl Can’t Help It 185 at an anxious, uneasy gait, is Timothy McVeigh, sporting a hunter green T-shirt proclaiming “Peace Through Superior Firepower.” A beige Windbreaker barely conceals his shoulder holster and his trusty Glock. To be perfectly honest, it’s a wonder that the Widow Watson lets you into her home in the first place. At best, you look like a pair of ruffians . And at worst—well, at your worst, you look like a pair of criminals on the run. Criminals who have scarcely slept for days. Or bathed or eaten, for that matter. You must make for a sorry sight indeed. Standing in the foyer of the house, you stretch out your hand to introduce yourself. “I know who you are,” the Widow Watson interrupts. “You are JD...