What do you, um, say to a naked, ah, lady? ~ May 22, 1986

David Heiller

Saturday night, May 11, was a good night for mystery and suspense. Rain was falling, which helps any story lacking suspense, from Hill Street to Hemingway. The city of Askov lay quiet under the steady rain, and Cliff and Wilma Krogstad lay quiet in their bed as the rain pounded the roof.

Cliff and Wilma don’t usually think about mystery and suspense at three in the morning, rain or no rain: They are usually too busy sleeping. But on May 11, Cliff heard a strange noise, and the mystery began.

“Cliff and I were sleeping, and all of a sudden, we heard someone come in,” Wilma recalls. “We thought it was our son, going to bed. Then we heard him get up again.”

Cliff stumbled bleary-eyed out of bed to investigate. He came back wide awake.

“Boy mother, there’s a strange woman in the house,” Cliff said. “You should see the room, it’s a mess.”

Mystery in Askov...

You should have seen the woman. She was, ah, she didn’t have, well, she seemed to be lacking, um—that’s the suspenseful part here. I’ll let Wilma tell it.

“When she came out of the bathroom, all she was wrapped in was two towels, you know what I mean.”

Yes, we are beginning to understand.

“Here she come out of the bathroom,” Wilma continues. “I said ‘What are you doing here?’ She said, ‘This is my home, I’m going to take what I want, and I’m going to leave.’

“She said, ‘This is 56-something in Cloquet.’ I said, ‘This isn’t Cloquet, it’s Askov.’

“‘You’re my mother and father,’ she said. ‘I’m going to take what I want and I’m going’.”

What this lady (giving her the benefit of the doubt for the sake of a good mystery) wanted was some clothing. That’s why she had rummaged through all the closets and drawers in the room.

Wilma called 911 while this was happening. Busy signal. Meanwhile the Mysterious Stranger had put on a pair of pants, boots, shirt and an old Army jacket. She looked anxious to find her real home. Where was that? Cloquet?

“I said, just sit down here, I’ll call the sheriff, he’ll take you to Cloquet’.” Wilma said.

While Wilma re-dialed 911, the lady went out the door, into the rainy night. She had arrived bone dry—part of the mystery—and walked back into the pouring rain.

The dispatcher told Wilma that a deputy wouldn’t be able to come to Askov until someone came on duty around seven Sunday morning. By then it was too late—the lady was fully clothed, and fully gone.

But the mystery remains, and leaves the Krogstads wondering “After it was all over with, I thought we would have liked to help,” Wilma says. “I think she was under drugs. She was very, very confused.”

“Tell you the truth,” Wilma says with a laugh, “it was scary it the time, and now it’s kind of humorous,”

Wilma Krogstad described the woman to me. I know every guy who is reading this column is asking that question fervently: What did she look like?

Well, she was... Naw, forget it. That would spoil the mystery.