Accidental Witness

2005-11-30T12:15:00.000-08:00

Chapter One: Interviews in a Nursing Home

Chapter Two: The Players

Chapter Three: Taking Care of Business

Chapter Four: Aftermath

Chapter Five: Recovery/Discovery

Chapter Six: Winning the Voters

Chapter Seven: Question Everything

Chapter Eight: Touching the Earth

Chapter Nine: Face-to-Face with the Enemy

Chapter Ten: Back Home in Indiana

Chapter Eleven: Conspiracy

Chapter Twelve: Confrontation with the Enemy

Chapter Thirteen: Crossing Over

Chapter Fourteen: Twelve Oaks Retirement Home

Chapter Eleven C: Dreaming

2005-11-29T19:34:00.000-08:00

It seemed that every time he touched Pol his senses were heightened and his imagination went wild. It had certainly done that at the Dunes, and now as he drifted off with her held in his arms he could feel a wild and wonderful dream coming on. He knew he could cut it off if he wanted to, just go into the deep comforting sleep of exhaustion, but he decided to let it take him and see where it would go. And so he surrendered himself to the dream-ride of a lifetime.

It began with the standard reliving of most recent events as all the conversations he’d had with Pol through the evening were replaying in his mind, delivering all the pleasure of her company to him again. Occasionally he reminded himself that she was at that moment cuddled close to him on the sofa softly sleeping with her head on his chest. As he dreamt, they were suddenly up on the hill at Twelve Oaks. This time when he crawled from his car, however, he watched in slow motion as a bolt of lightning drove into the trees behind the church. The instant boom of thunder was so loud that his ears shut down.

So that was it. It wasn’t just the impact with the pole that had deafened him, but the crack of thunder. Had there been thunder and lightning the night of his accident? He reminded himself that he was dreaming, but the afterimage of the lightning bolt stayed in his eyes. As he tried to focus on the church, it seemed to narrow to a single hot white spot with a slender thread of light emanating from it and connecting to him. He reached out a hand and wound the thread around his wrist, then let it tug him up the hill. The church doors took shape around the thread and he glided through them and into the sanctuary.

Before this even his dreams of this night had been permeated with the pain of the broken ribs and concussion. But in the dream tonight he seemed to travel weightlessly through the night, following the thread of light.

In the sanctuary that his dream took him to the vast cathedral with its crowds was missing. The big stained glass window was no more than that, though the colors of the glass seemed to glow with a light of their own. What he saw now was Pol, radiant in the center of the front of the church. She was breathtakingly beautiful. It was as if he could see more than the quiet woman with such powerful vision for the country that he would follow it anywhere. What he saw now he realized he would follow whether she had a vision for the country or not. The thread of light that he followed came directly from the core of her being and he realized that he was willingly allowing himself to be wrapped in it and bound to her.

Nor was the union one-sided, for he saw that she, too, was being drawn toward him by the glowing thread. Aaron believed there was such a thing as love at first sight, but acknowledged that even his relationship with Rachel, his wife, had taken weeks to grow into an attachment. The bond that was growing in this image was frightening in its scale and Aaron could only categorize it in his overwhelmed mind as something that reached into their very genes and made it impossible for any other response to each other.

When at last they touched, the thread of light bringing them together, it was with such intense joy that it almost woke Aaron from his sleep. He fought down the urge to wake up so that he could continue the dreaming experience. They melted into each other, two separate beings occupying the same space and for the second time, Aaron saw the world around him in a new light. He realized that he could dive into the earth and see with its mind. He could detect where it was content and where it was in pain. He could see cities struggling to burst from their confines as new growth on the surface, and could feel the gouge of pain when great wounds were opened on the surface through man-made or natural disasters. It was as if the world were growing, if not in physical size, then growing into something other than it was. And like always, growth was painful and yet interspersed with the same rollicking joys that had overwhelmed him when he first touched Pol.

How could he stand all this feeling? It was as if he were caught up in the emotions of something that experienced with the combined intensity of the entire population. And having experienced it, how could he do less that love it and protect it?

As dreams do, it changed again and he was with Pol on the Dunes again. This time, however, there were no visions of earthquakes and poison. This time they were simply two lovers holding each other as they gazed across the wonder of the Great Lakes. And in that embrace, he remained until dawn.

Chapter Fourteen B: Reunion

2005-11-29T09:19:00.000-08:00

Aaron moved silently around his room in the mobile chair. He could stand when he needed to, but walking was a task he didn’t want to risk. He didn’t want to collapse and be carted to the infirmary like Aunt Hattie had. He’d designed this retirement home to allow the maximum amount of independent living that an older person could have, then he had the home built using funds from his off-shore investments, carefully put away by Jack during their years in business together. When Jack and Theresa died, the codes to all his investments had transferred to Aaron as well, making him wealthy enough to preserve his little corner of rural Indiana.

He sat for a long time with the morning newspaper on his reader. It was open to a buried news item that he had placed there himself. “Twelve Oaks Church to be Razed” the headline said. There was a picture of the old building standing in the midst of the retirement center. The new Twelve Oaks Retirement Center expansion would include a non-denominational chapel designed by a renowned architect. Well, that was what happened when you sold your stake. No one listened to old men anyway. Next to his reader there were other memorabilia that he had taken from his little treasure box. He lovingly handled each of the photos that he had preserved from Pol’s house. He especially loved the one of her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother standing in front of the old Roadster.

Another photo showed Aaron on the steps of the Capitol in Indianapolis being sworn in as Governor in January of 2009. The oath was administered by his old friend and colleague, Jack Diggory. Behind Aaron and to his left stood the somber figure of his chief of staff, Nina Patterson. They had never become friends, but they understood that they held common goals. Nina would never become a chief of staff at the white house after the shooting incident, but she had been cleared of all charges except possession of an unregistered weapon because of the evidence Aaron brought regarding Alex’s responsibility for the poisoning of Lake Michigan and murder of Pol Stamos. Nina remained a political activist and when Aaron retired from the Governorship, she became chair of the Great Lakes Foundation which he established.

He liked to imagine that Pol was standing next to him in this picture. It was so easy to see her there. She had shaken him out of his reverie and brought him back to political activism, and she had loved him. A tear trickled from the old man’s eye. “You told me you would show me how we could do it without people dying,” he whispered. “It’s the only time you ever lied to me.”

He put his treasures carefully back in the box, closed the lid and gently slid it into the incinerator chute. He put on his hat and gloves and wrapped the blanket firmly around his waist and legs, then glided in his mobile chair out his door, and out of the building.

Only two of the twelve oaks still stood in the midst of what was now a paved lot between the church and the retirement home. He supposed that they, too, would someday fall. It had long been speculated that their unique position behind the church acted as a kind of lightning rod. Aaron shivered and looked up into the cloudy April night wondering if there would be a storm yet tonight.

It was nearly midnight. Across the street, lit by lamps was the Twelve Oaks Cemetery. There were limited plots available in it now, but it was protected as a historical site (another of his accomplishments as Governor of Indiana). Soon, he thought.

He slid up to the door of the old church and drew a key from his pocket. The building had been locked for the better part of ten years as the result of a building inspection that pronounced it unsafe. He had fought off the destruction of the building until his latest bid to preserve it had failed this winter. The building would face the heavy equipment within the next week. It was time.

The inner doors were stuck partially open and he had a difficult time maneuvering his chair through them and up the narrow aisle of the church. It smelled of damp and dust. The floorboards groaned with his weight as he glided across them. He rolled directly to the front of the church and gazed up at the luminous stained glass window. It glowed brightly with the high-intensity yard lighting that was outside it in the parking lot of the home. But it was still. Aaron looked around him at the tiny sanctuary, willing if he could the appearance of the cathedral he had seen so often in his dreams, but seeing only the dust-covered pews and the pulpit to one side.

From beneath his blanket he pulled a candle and a lighter (contraband items in the retirement home, but he’d had them secreted away in his box of treasures). He struggled out of the chair and up to the front of the chancel. There was no longer a cloth on the wooden altar table but Aaron set the candle on the bare surface and lit it. Then he went slowly back to the chair and settled himself in to wait. Old people were good at waiting, no matter how impatient they became. He knew deep inside that he had only to wait.

He watched the candle until he fell asleep. He wasn’t even aware that he slept it was so deep and dreamless. But early in the morning the light from the window woke him. It seemed that there must be a hole in the window because a shaft of bright white light was shining in his eyes. A voice spoke and the light narrowed to a pinpoint so he could see the whole glowing window and the people moving around in it.

“Have you been waiting long, dearie?” the voice said. Aaron knew then that he was dreaming. Perhaps he could just stay in this dream as he looked into Pol’s eyes and answered.

“All my life, my love.”

“Then come with me. I’ve so much to show you,” she said. She reached for his hand and he felt her firm warm grip on his. Oh, let me never wake up from this dream, he thought. The touch of her hand was so real it brought tears to his eyes as he stood and followed her toward the window. Colors seemed brighter to him than ever and his senses seemed to be awakening for the first time. Music, voices, the very heartbeat in his chest were all in his ears. But more than anything was the sensual touch of his lover as she turned to face him. “Don’t wait any longer,” she said and kissed him.

Just as the candle on the table guttered and went out, the shutter on the camera in the back of the church silently fluttered. The young man took his first breath in what seemed hours as he detached himself from the last pew and slipped out of the church into the Indiana dawn.

THE END

Chapter Fourteen A: Interview

2005-11-29T09:13:00.000-08:00

“That’s an amazing story, Governor,” he said, turning off his recording device. “It will certainly liven up the rather dry history we’ve currently got of the War on Terrorism. I have to be honest with you, however, and tell you that not many people will believe it. This idea that there could be aliens who look like us, talk like us, and feel like us, but are somehow connected to a higher purpose is a little, if you’ll excuse the phrase, hippie drug culture. Even your own statements would lead one to believe that you were often under the hallucinating influence of drugs. Not that anyone in this day and age would judge you for that. It just casts doubt on your credibility.”

Former Governor Aaron Case sat in his mobile chair looking out the window at the new construction that was going on in the neighborhood. Over the past few years the urban sprawl of Fort Wayne had broken all constraints and occupied the better part of three counties. He had to admit he was responsible for some of it. He’d purchased this property when it came on the market nearly forty years ago and began developing it, including the nursing home complex that he now lived in. He knew that the young interviewer, compiling oral histories of turn of the century would not be likely to believe his story any more than he had believed Mad Aunt Hattie. But he had waited as long as he could before he told the story. He could feel his time on earth running out as surely as if it were grains of sand through his fingers.

Well, that was one thing that they couldn’t deny. The expanded Indiana Dunes State Park and National Shoreline were directly attributable to the campaign he waged as Governor of Indiana from 2009-2017, and as an activist for twenty years after that. He had saved the jobs and lifestyles of hundreds of families when the steel and oil industries collapsed. They didn’t collapse because of anything he had done, but simply because they were obsolete. The old harbor still functioned as an international mooring, more likely to see cruise ships than barges, but still a functioning international trade center, exactly twenty-seven feet deep. But he had waited until now to divulge his theory that there were aliens among us, influencing the growth and development of our world, here to guide, lead, and inspire.

Old people, he decided were good at waiting. He’d been active and still driving well into his 80s, but by 90 he was more willing to sit and wait for a ride when he wanted to go somewhere. If it was winter, he discovered he was willing to wait until spring before he really went anyplace. There was something to be said for waiting. It allowed an old mind to wander through places it had nearly forgotten. In one’s mind, one was ever nineteen. It was only in the mirror that the idea was put to the test. Now he was what? 95? He’d nearly lost track. A hundred years ago the world was just recovering from the end of the Second World War. Forty years ago it was embroiled in the War Against Terror. And he had done his part to fight in that war, uncovering a plot and a terrorist act to poison the Great Lakes. There were not many people who knew, as he did, that finding that canister of mercury had saved more than the Lakes. He could still see visions of what Chicago would have looked like if there had been a mid-lake Earthquake of the magnitude of that which he had foreseen.

“Governor Case?” the young historian was attempting to call him back from his reverie. That was the trouble with the young, they weren’t willing to wait. “Governor, are there any other comments you’d like to make before we consider the story complete?”

“It’s never complete, young man,” Aaron growled. “That’s why we keep collecting the memories of people. Each memory fills in another niche of knowledge.”

“Yessir,” the interviewer acknowledged immediately. Aaron case had been a historian before he became involved in politics and had more books to his credit than this young researcher. “I sometimes wish I’d been able to collect material like you did in the old days, sir. We have so much recorded history these days that you can’t really get anything new from the oral histories.”

“Still, you come around interviewing old people,” Aaron said. “What do you hope to gain from our stories, knowing that they can’t be verified? Did we make it all up? Were we on drugs? Did we simply come across an old urban legend and decide to make it our own? How do you separate the truth from an old man’s stories of aliens?”

“Well, we can’t really,” the interviewer said. “It is all just looking for pieces that we can fit into the puzzle. If you mention something and someone else mentions it, then it is possible that it has some grounding in history. We dig in new places and try to find hard data that corroborates the story.”

“And what is your thesis on?” Aaron asked. His young interviewer was working on a PhD thesis.

“Individuals in the War on Terror,” the interviewer said. “It’s an examination of how the war affected individual lives and changed the way people viewed themselves as citizens of a global society.”

“And that is the story I am giving you. Not only did it make us into global citizens, it got us out there to do our part to save the world.” Some how Aaron felt he was coming off sounding angry at this poor young guy. He just wanted to help him see. “There are no documents available on some things. You’ve researched the Lake poisoning, did you find anything?”

“No sir. There was a weekend of articles that seemed to agree with what you’ve told me, but there was a retraction printed. Homeland security said there were no relevant levels of mercury found in the water and that the mills had all supplies accounted for.”

“So even that is suspect in your mind,” Aaron said. “You see, history is written by the winners and it glorifies the losers to admit that they were clever or that they almost got the best of you. How do you prove otherwise?”

“You interview and hope that eventually you uncover a piece of evidence that will stand up to scrutiny,” the interviewer answered.

“And when you find that piece of evidence,” Aaron continued, “Do you splash it all over the front pages or do you try to quietly insinuate it into a tine subculture? How do you decide if you should change people’s perception of reality?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Neither do I. So I kept it all these years trying to decide.” Aaron moved his chair over to his closet and opened the door. “Up there,” he said. “Hand me that red plastic box on the right.” The interviewer reached to the top shelf and pulled down the box and handed it to Aaron. Aaron moved back to his table and opened the box. There were assorted memorabilia that he had never shared with anyone, had kept in his possession for all these years He had never decided what to do with them. Now he knew. The time had come.

“Here,” Aaron said, pulling an old cell phone from the box.

“Is this a cell phone?” the interviewer asked, automatically fingering the earbud that had probably been stuck in his ear since he was ten. No one actually carried handheld hardware anymore. This was an antique. “They don’t even have that kind of service anymore do they?”

“No,” Aaron said, “but you don’t have to make any calls on it. I pull it out once a week and charge it, so you just turn it on and switch to the picture library.” The interviewer followed the instructions fumbling with the primitive user interface, but finally managing to display the picture library. He gasped as he looked at the screen.

“Is this for real?” he asked.

“This is the cell phone I was carrying around during the first part of 2006. Those are the pictures I took inside the old church. If you go to voice notes, you’ll hear the original recording of Alex Jasper that Susan and I recorded that night,” Aaron said. “I had to keep it all, but I never knew what to do with it.”

“Are you kidding?” the young man said. “You should have had this broadcast on all the media. This is earthshaking.”

“Should I?” Aaron asked. “Does the earth need any more shaking than we’ve given it in the last half century? Why should we really care?”

“Don’t you think we should?” said the young man.

“I think you should,” answered Aaron. “Someone should always know the truth. But I was not meant to know any of this and if it weren’t for Mad Aunt Hattie sending me on that wild chase into the country I’d never have become an accidental witness to these events. She passed her memories down to me and in my way I’ve passed them down to you. If I hadn’t known, perhaps Pol would still be alive and guiding, leading, and inspiring. Or perhaps civilization would have been wiped out by the eco-terrorists. How are we to know the right way to handle this information.”

“But with this, we would have proof,” the young man began. Aaron took the cellphone from him and opened the back of it. He removed a tiny storage card, then closed the phone back up. He handed the phone back to the young man.

“I have all the proof I need,” Aaron said tapping his head with the tiny storage card, “right up here. You collect your own.” With that, and considerable effort on his part, Aaron snapped the storage card in half with his fingers. The young man gaped at Aaron’s crude display of destruction.

“But that could have been used,” he began.

“Exactly,” Aaron said. “Young man, I was twice your age when I made this discovery and not wise enough to know what to do with it. I’ve told you because I have to tell someone. But I won’t give you my proof. If they look like us, talk like us, act like us, and feel like us, who really cares if there are aliens among us? They are here to guide, lead, and inspire; but someone has to know what they are following. Now you are that someone. You know but what will you do with the knowledge?” Aaron tossed the old cell phone and the broken storage card into a trash chute that would lead to an incinerator. The young man stared speechlessly.

“I wish you great luck with your compilation of the oral history of the War on Terror,” Aaron said. “And thank you for spending so much time with an old man.” The young interviewer was dismissed and silently took his cue to leave. Aaron turned back toward the window. “Kids,” he said to himself. “Doesn’t even know you could doctor photos then.”

Chapter Thirteen D: Guardian Angel

2005-11-28T07:43:00.000-08:00

Aaron always wondered how he would respond to a sudden emergency and always hoped he would never find out. In the reality, things happened too quickly for him to respond in any way. He was holding Pol in his arms before Alex hit the floor and Jack was yelling “Call 911!” before Aaron could comprehend that the blood on his hands was coming from Pol’s chest.

“Pol!” he cried. “Help’s on the way. Hang in there Darling.” She groaned, the first sign that she was not yet dead.

“Aaron,” she whispered, “are you all right?”

“I’m fine, love. Shh. Don’t waste your strength. You’re hurt,” he said as if she didn’t know. He grabbed for a blanket and pulled it up over her, wadding a corner to press against the wound.

“Hold me, Dearie,” Pol said. “I’m afraid we won’t be able to grow old together after all.”

“Pol, you can’t die,” Aaron said. “You are my guardian angel. How would I survive without you?” She smiled, beyond the pain.

“Should have gotten an angel with an immortal body,” she said. “Aaron, you must finish the work. Don’t let it fail. You can do it. I’ll be watching.”

“We’ll finish it together, Pol,” Aaron said. “I’m not letting go of you now.” He gripped her hand with an uncommon strength.

“I’ll wait for you. Come when you are finished,” she said with a shuddering breath.

“I’ll be here for you, Pol,” Aaron started, but another hand was taking Pol’s hand from him. He looked up to see the architect through his tears. “Please, let her stay.”

“I can’t,” the architect said. She took Pol’s hand and Pol stood up and walked toward the stained glass window. Aaron could tell that he was no longer holding more than an empty shell. “Like Hattie, there is a place for you, Aaron Case. You will be remembered.” The architect placed an arm around Pol and stepped through the glass. Pol turned back and held Aaron’s gaze until she was out of sight.

Jack was at Aaron’s shoulder kneeling beside him. Aaron clutched Pol’s lifeless body to his chest as he rocked back and forth a pitiful moan issuing from deep within him. “I’m sorry, son,” Jack said softly. “I’m so sorry.”

The rest was a blur. Ambulances, police, and FBI agents arrived within the hour. Nina was taken into custody and Alex’s body was removed. Before she was taken away, Aaron faced Nina. They looked deeply into each other’s eyes and a degree of understanding passed between them. Without saying anything to each other, they knew that they would get through this and there would be a common bond in the future. They may never be friends, but they would be allies.

After Pol’s body was also taken to the examiner’s office the remaining five and one neighbor who had come when the scene was nearly clear, picked up the casket of Mad Aunt Hattie and carried it across the road to the open grave where the cemetery crew lowered it into the waiting grave. Aaron knew that he would be sitting next to this grave and one that would be dug next to it for many years to come.

Chapter Thirteen C: Vengeance

2005-11-27T22:47:00.000-08:00

After leaving Pol’s office in a huff early Monday morning, Nina went home and pulled herself together. She had amphetamines that she’d kept buried in her underwear drawer just for an emergency like this. She couldn’t stand the thought of sleep. She knew that she would be plagued by nightmares if she closed her eyes. But one thing that she knew was that it was time for the shady characters she had cultivated since coming to Washington D.C. five years ago to start paying off. Pulling out her international phone, she began making calls. By seven o’clock in the morning she had a small caliber handgun that she could handle and ammunition and enough speed to get her through a week of not sleeping if she needed to go that far.

She carefully regulated herself in the office and staff meeting, almost over-compensating on the side of appearing too lethargic. She would use the excuse of attending Marvin’s funeral in Indiana as a way of taking time off. She bought a ticket she knew she would never use, and used on-line check-in to check in for the flight. It would be long before anyone realized she had not actually gotten on the plane. Instead she intended to be camped outside Aaron Case’s hotel, to follow him wherever he went until she got a clear shot.

So it was a shock when Pol said they were flying back to Indiana as soon as they could get to the airport. Her plans changed. Instead of lying in wait, she left the office, got in her car and headed west. A little over 600 miles later she parked her car in a grove of trees near Pol’s house in Wells County and began her wait. It was nearly dawn on Tuesday when arrived and concealed her car. She scouted the grounds and found Aaron’s car in the barn. She would not do anything to his car because he might at any time have Pol in it. Nor would she sully her home or property with her deed. She was patient. She would find Aaron alone and take care of it.

She nearly had her chance when they went up to the church. As she approached through the trees below the church she saw Aaron leave the church and walk into the cemetery. She took aim from the trees, but lowered her gun almost immediately. She had a small caliber pistol. Its accuracy beyond twenty feet would be suspect even if she were an expert marksman, which she was not. She would have to wait. She was surprised after the tolling of the bell at seven o’clock that so many people showed up for Pol’s obscure aunt’s funeral. Her people must be better connected than she thought, she mused. That Uncle Alex is probably some kind of local philanthropist or something as well. She wished, not for the first time, that she had more information about these relatives.

She’d just taken another pill when the funeral director and his assistant left the church. She lay low for another half hour, making sure no one was left but Pol and Aaron. She crept up to the church and gently pushed down on the door latch. Locked. Damn. She had read a lot of books in which spies and others had opened locked doors with anything from a bobby pin to a pocket knife. But even if she had either of those she had no idea how to use them to open a locked door. She began a careful surveillance of the premises, checking for other doors or for windows that she could get in through without luck. At last she came again to Aaron’s car. He’d left it unlocked. Who would be prowling around out here in the country, after all. He obviously hadn’t lived long enough in Washington D.C., she thought. She opened the door and slipped into the passenger seat. She slid down low where she could see the door of the church and still not be readily seen in the vehicle.

The wait was interminable. She used two more of the eye-popping pills as she waited through the night. The lack of sleep for the past two days was definitely catching up with her and she discovered she needed the pills more frequently to stay awake. Her heart was racing, but she forced herself to stay still in the car.

It was just before dawn that her patience was rewarded. Another car came up the country road and pulled to a stop in front of the church. To her surprise, Pol’s Uncle Alex clambered out of the vehicle and approached the church. He tried the door, discovered it was locked and quickly reached up over the sill of the window to the left of the door and brought back a key that he inserted in the lock and opened the door. Damn! If she had only known there was a key, she would have had this job done hours ago. As soon as the door was closed, she slipped out of the car and ran to the door. At least Alex had not re-locked it. She entered the foyer as stealthily as she could.

The inner door to the sanctuary was slightly ajar and she could hear a confusion of voices issuing forth. But she couldn’t really understand what was happening. She lowered herself to the floor and crawled through the door, nudging it as little as she could to get into the sanctuary. She still couldn’t clearly see where Alex and Pol were talking, but she could hear better. What she heard played itself over and over in her head as she tried to grasp who was talking and what it meant. Alex said he had poisoned the Lake. There was an argument of which Nina could only catch a few of the words. Pol seemed to talk to someone else whom she could not hear at all. Probably Aaron standing near her. This was no good. The speed was causing a ringing in her ears that was drowning out most of the conversation. She would have to maneuver herself to where she could see. She raised herself up cautiously above the back pew just in time to see Alex pull his gun from his jacket.

NO! she screamed inside herself, but her mouth stayed resolutely clamped shut. She stood fully and brought her gun to bear on Alex. He could not harm Pol.

What happened next appeared to happen in slow motion to Nina, yet her own movements were caught in that same mire that seemed to slow everything down. She struggled to steady her aim on Alex as he swung the gun nearly at her. Suddenly in front of her another figure rose from the front pew. It had to be Aaron. She suffered a moment of hesitation over which target she could focus on, but when Pol screamed and lunged she swung her pistol firmly on target and squeezed the trigger just as she heard another shot echo through the building.

She turned to her left to move up the aisle as four other figures crashed through the doorway and one knocked her out with a single blow to the head.

Chapter Thirteen B: Wake

2005-11-27T21:40:00.000-08:00

Tuesday dawned like a new birth of creation. The skies were blue and although it was cold in the morning, there was a definite hint of spring in the air. When Aaron looked out the window of the old farmhouse he could see crocus blooming in the yard.

He woke up alone in the massive bed in Pol’s room, but the smell of coffee was like life ascending the stairs. When he came out of the bathroom, Pol was seated on the edge of the bed with a tray of coffee and cookies. Aaron looked at the tray and laughed.

“I feel like Santa Claus,” he said. “Coffee and cookies.” Pol blushed.

“I have absolutely no idea what to serve on the morning after,” she said. “If you want better than this, you will have to make it yourself.”

“I can think of nothing that I want that is not in this room,” Aaron said smiling at her. They settled back on the bed with a cup of coffee each and cuddled close together as they sipped the morning brew. If Aaron had thoughts of working this day, they were quickly dispelled. The two stayed in the bedroom like newlyweds except for occasional forays into the kitchen for more food. They were children learning the new ABCs of love and as Pol put it, “I’ve no intention of letting my lover out of my sight today.”

Eventually, however, there was a call from the funeral director indicating that they would be at the old church within the hour. Pol told him to call from the church and she would come up to let him in. It changed the mood of the afternoon slightly. They ate a light supper and dressed in clothes for the night in the church. Aaron confirmed that Jack would have his crew at the church at 6:00 a.m. for the burial, though he considered that an odd time for a funeral. Aaron explained that it was family tradition. When he had finished the conversation, Pol handed him a bundle of blankets to put in the car.

“It gets cold up there at night,” she explained. “We don’t really heat it very much.”

The call came from the funeral director and they loaded the car and left the house. There was a few minutes of coordination and work to be done as the director moved the casket into the church, then went across the street to check the readiness of the newly dug grave. Aaron had not seen the diggers from the house as the cemetery was blocked by the trees from there. So he decided to take a look himself. He was pleased and smiled when he discovered that the grave had been dug next to the plain stone marker of Harper MacKenzie.

It was seven o’clock when Pol got the rope down from its hook in the foyer and began ringing the bell in the old church tower. Her ringing had a strange rhythm to it, tolling out the life and loss of the old woman. She rang for a good ten minutes, declining Aaron’s offer to help. “There may come a day when the job is your, my love,” Pol said cryptically, “but today the task is mine.”

At about seven thirty the door of the church opened and the first of the neighbors entered to give their condolences to Pol and to bid farewell to the mad old woman who was a legend even now in the community. The mayors of Uniondale, Sevastapol, and Ossian showed up to pay their respects for the oldest member of the community to have passed. Aaron was surprised at how many people had turned out and watched curiously, trying to spot when the architect would show up. But no matter who came through the door, there was no indication that Pol had spoken to any about their problem with the eco-terrorists and what to do about Uncle Alex.

The parade of people continued in spurts and fits until after nine o’clock. The funeral director offered to have a staff member stay at the church for the night, but Pol firmly told them that she and Aaron would stand watch for the night. By ten o’clock, Pol had locked the church door from the inside and she and Aaron made their way quietly to the front of the sanctuary to visit Hattie’s closed coffin.

“She’ll finally lie next to her Harper,” Aaron mused.

“It’s strange, isn’t it?” Pol asked. “All these years I kept playing at the idea that I was only her great niece, but had accepted all along that I was her great-granddaughter. I just assumed that I would be able to tell her someday. Now it is too late.”

“I’m sure she knew,” Aaron said gently.

“Thanks to you,” Pol said. “You told her even though I hadn’t confessed. I’m so glad you spoke to her before she died.

“She was, in her way, a very perceptive old woman,” Aaron said. “I’ve always wondered at the patience of old people. They seem to know how to wait. And when they have waited long enough, they simply pass on.”

“You see a lot of old people in your line of work, don’t you?” Pol asked.

“It’s old people who seem to understand that their memories are valuable,” Aaron answered. “Either that, or they simply crave company so much that they are willing to share things they would never have told anyone when they were younger—just to have the company.”

“Let’s…” Pol began. “Aaron, let’s grow old together so that we don’t have to wait for company to tell our stories. Let’s be tell mad tales to anyone who will listen and become the old people that no one believes, except that we are together and that must count for something.”

“Pol,” Aaron answered, “that almost sounds like a proposal. If it is, then my answer is yes. I will grow old only in your company, I promise.” They embraced next to Hattie’s coffin and between them they could almost hear her gentle voice singing “Back Home Again in Indiana.” They moved to the front pew and covered themselves generously with the blankets. Now that people had left the church, it was definitely cooling down. The pew was more comfortable than any pew than Aaron could remember from a childhood spent in church on Sundays. They cuddled together and talked late into the night, kissing often. Eventually they dozed off to sleep.

Aaron was almost immediately transferred into one of those lucid dreams that seemed to be most intense when he was in contact with Pol. This, however, was definitely influenced by their presence in the old church and the stained glass window that dominated the front. Aaron had been impressed when he actually came into the church with Hattie’s body by the beauty of the window, but had to laugh at himself for all the images he’d had of the huge window. It was really quite small. The whole sanctuary would seat a maximum of maybe 75 people. The chancel next to the pulpit was scarcely large enough to fit the casket. The chair that he had used to get the bell rope… no, he corrected himself, Pol had rung the bell. But the chair had figured in his dream somehow. It was the only seat in the chancel, located directly behind the pulpit.

Pol had lit candles on the small altar table that was devoid of any religious symbolism or decoration. It was a simple wooden table with a white linen runner and candles aplenty. As they dozed off to sleep, the burning candles provided both the only light source and the only source of heat other than their bodies.

In his dreamstate now, he imagined the fascinating window glowing. As it glowed, it grew, and the sanctuary around him expanded into the cathedral-like setting he had seen in earlier dreams. This time, he looked around it more carefully and could compare it less to a cathedral than some vast chamber in which business was conducted, like the trading floor of a stock exchange. The people were less in a concurrent mode of worship than they were in communication with each other, giving and taking and trading commodities for their various worlds.

Nor was he being invited to enter the window this time. Rather, there was a being in the window that was approaching the chamber. As it stepped forward through the stained glass, it solidified into a physical form and stood looking down on Hattie’s coffin. Pol stirred beside him and Aaron thought he heard her speak.

“Stay here, darling,” she said. “The architect has arrived. I’ll only be a moment.” She rose from the pew, oddly leaving her sleeping body still warmly snuggled against Aaron’s.

“What do you say, daughter?” the figure addressed Pol as she approached the casket. The female voice of the architect suddenly rang in Aaron’s mind and he was catapulted into the first meeting that he had accidentally witnessed. These beings were beautiful, even angelic, he thought. The voice of the architect spoke as though it were a chorus of beings embodied in a single presence in this world. Her words drew at the very center of his being and he thought for a moment that his heart would stop for the very joy that it inspired in him.

“She was faithful to the end, mother,” Pol answered. “She was unswerving in her tale even when I denied it. There is no question that she has lived her life patiently awaiting this day.”

“Then she shall, indeed, have her reward,” the architect said sadly. “For all our knowledge and planning, I have never understood how this crossing over occurs. It is not possible for her to become one of us, yet it is not possible for her to exist apart from us. I suppose it is something in the genetic structure that brings these few into our realm, even though they can never experience it fully. But, I know that there is one who will welcome her.” She turned toward the window and uttered a syllable, or perhaps a phrase. Aaron could not comprehend what was said or its meaning. It hurt his teeth to hear it. But from the window another figure approached, stepped through the glass and materialized next to the coffin. He was young and beautiful and incongruously carried a tenor ukulele in one hand. He did not speak, but seemed to reach a hand directly through the closed lid of the coffin. The hand that accompanied his as he withdrew it was not the hand of an old woman, and the woman who followed the hand was young, mischievous, and beautiful. She embraced her Harper and they turned back toward the window and stepped through. Just as they were nearly through, the young girl turned and looked directly at Aaron and smiled. Then she and her lover from so many years before receded into the window’s background.

Tears filled Aaron’s eyes and it was several minutes before he focused again on the continuing conversation between Pol and the architect.

“Your contact, too, was never one of us,” the architect was saying, “but we never thought he would act in such a contrary way.”

“There are those among us who would praise his actions,” Pol said.

“Perhaps, but even they do not exercise this kind of brutality. I fear that just as he created in his own mind the concept that he was one of us, he has created his own image of how we should work. He needs to be stopped, but I do not wish to intervene directly in these affairs. Let your disciple deal with him. It is an affair for his people,” the architect concluded looking at Aaron. “He is not one of ours.”

“I am,” said a voice from behind Aaron. He turned in his seat and saw the fat man walking up the aisle toward the meeting. “I brought her to you. I took your messages to her. I did all your bidding because I am one of you,” he said. “You can’t turn your back on me now. I’d have come home long before this were it not for her need of me and my sad addiction to the spice cumin. Why did you never tell me of the dangers of these spices?” he demanded.

“My poor deluded man,” the architect said. “There is no addictive spice on this world. You’ve simply created that as a part of your invented caricature of what you have seen of us. We show ourselves to you because you were useful and we had no other conduit to contact Polyhymnia. You must certainly have thought it odd that you were never able to contact us, no matter how much time you spent in the church, until she was old enough to need guidance. For your loyalty we could reward you, but for your treachery, we cannot abide you.”

“I did as you asked,” Alex stated. “I brought her to you. And when the other came to me and told me what to do to help the world rid itself of the human sore on its surface, I carried out his word. I poisoned the Lake. Now there will be a great earthquake and this time she’ll cure herself of the infestation of humans.”

“Little one, it is not so,” said the architect in the tone of an exasperated parent. So, the raising of worlds is no simpler than the raising of children, Aaron thought. “The voice you have heard commanding this is your own creation. Even when you came here to meet with your master, no one met with you. It has all been in your head. It is not part of our plan to rid the world of humanity. They are a part of the living organism.” She turned to address Pol who seemed at this point to be overwhelmed with sadness as she looked at her trusted Uncle Alex.

“You should have told me,” she said to the architect.

“We did, daughter,” the architect responded. “In your initiation when he brought you here we told you that you needed now to stand on your own and make your own decisions, not to depend on Alex, but to search your heart for right choices. You have known this all along.” Pol dropped her head. It was a moment of realization that the answers that she was searching for were inside her and she had known when she over-ruled Alex on the decision to hire Aaron that she had to make her own decisions on this and not trust Alex.

“I must find a way to help him,” Pol said. “I can’t simply abandon him because he has made a mistake; because he wanted to be one of us so badly that he imagined he was.”

“That is for his own kind to determine,” the architect said pointing once again at Aaron.

“I won’t let you cast me out,” Alex shouted. “I won’t let you.” He drew a gun from beneath his coat and pointed it at the architect. “Take me with you now,” he demanded. “Take me home now. I won’t be judged by humans. They are… plants. They are not our peers.”

“Child,” the architect soothed, “put away your weapon. You know you cannot hurt me. I am not physically present in your world.”

“No,” snarled Alex, “ but he is.”

Aaron snapped suddenly awake from his dream. Pol was no longer beside him. In the front of the church, next to the casket of Aunt Hattie, Alex was confronting Pol with a drawn gun. How could he have been sleeping through this. He stood from the pew as Alex swung the gun around to bear on him.

Pol lunged at Alex and screamed.

Chapter Thirteen A: Lovers

2005-11-27T19:18:00.000-08:00

As Aaron drove from Warren Memorial Home to Pol’s house in the country, the two rode in silence. It had been a wild and stressful 24 hours bringing them back to where they started after their Saturday night date.

First, they had stayed in the office the rest of the night arranging the transfer of the location information of the mercury canister to Homeland Security. Pol chose to conduct the transfer from her office. They worked out the story carefully so that no one was specifically implicated. They indicated that certain sources were still investigating on behalf of the Congresswoman and they would report to Homeland Security as soon as they could make contact.

At the staff meeting at 8:00 in the morning, a subdued Nina conducted the meeting with little to add to their weekend work other than to watch for any sign that the Great Lakes Bill would come out of committee as a result of the news stories of the weekend. Then she announced that she would be taking a few days off for a funeral.

She apologized to Pol for her sudden break-in the night before and explained that a friend had just died and she was not thinking straight. She asked for time to go to the funeral and be with the family which Pol quickly granted, explaining her own news to Nina. Though subdued, Nina seemed to be quite normal when she left to meet the family at the hospital. Aaron and Pol headed straight for the airport after the morning roll call and caught the next flight back to Indianapolis where Aaron had left his car the night before. They were both so exhausted that they slept in the seats next to each other all the way to Indianapolis. Aaron was troubled by indistinct dreams that left him feeling as though he had scarcely slept at all. He got a large cup of strong coffee before they left the airport and headed to the Warren Home. Again, Pol was pretty much silent, dozing in the passenger seat.

At the home Aaron stood by while Pol made arrangements for the transfer of Aunt Hattie’s body to the Twelve Oaks for burial. Aaron saw several people he knew who stopped to fawn over him and tell him how much he had meant to Hattie in her last weeks. He was surprised that Pol was equally well-known at the Home and that she had apparently been a frequent visitor and benefactor. He was also surprised to find that Pol intended for Hattie’s body to lie in the church over night the following night. There would, she said, be a short memorial service and then she would be buried in the family plot at Twelve Oaks. She made several calls, but came up with only one person who could be pressed into service as a pall bearer on Wednesday morning. She turned to Aaron and asked if he could get a couple of his friends to volunteer and if he would mind helping. He agreed and immediately called Jack.

While Pol completed the arrangements with the funeral director who wondered if she would mind if they held a little service in the chapel at the home so Hattie’s friends could say farewell that evening, Aaron talked to Jack on his cell phone. Pol agreed to the memorial, but asked that she be excused from attending as she had had no sleep the night before. Jack agreed to assemble the investigative crew so that they could brief Pol and the architect when that meeting took place. The researchers would function as pall bearers and an honor guard for the passing of Mad Aunt Hattie who had, in her way, gotten them all involved in this escapade.

Now, Aaron was ready to drop Pol off at her farmhouse and get some sleep himself. All trace of the snow that had kept them in on Saturday was gone already, typical of Indiana’s rapidly changing spring weather. Aaron splashed through the mud in the drive and stopped in front of Pol’s door. She looked up at him and smiled.

“You might as well pull up and park in the barn again,” she said. “I’m not planning to let you go anywhere else tonight.” Aaron was surprised since they had neither mentioned nor alluded to any further romantic contact since Nina’s visit surprised them the night before. Nonetheless, he gladly pulled up to the barn and pulled inside after Pol opened the door. They walked quietly to the house and Aaron hung his coat on the peg inside the back door entryway to the kitchen. Pol continued through the house to deposit her coat and bag in her room. Aaron turned to put a kettle of water on the stove for tea.

She surprised him when he turned around. She folded into his embrace and raised searching lips to his own. When the long kiss gradually ended, Pol reached over and turned off the teakettle.

“We’ll worry about that later,” she said. “Right now I want you.”

“Pol,” Aaron said, hardly believing what he was hearing. “Do you think this is the right time?”

“There is neither time better nor worse than now,” she said cryptically. “What is important is that now is the time we have, and my dear, I have grown to love you in such a short period of time, I cannot help but think I should pluck this fruit while it is ripe and not wait any longer. Come.”

What followed was the sweet, slow discovery of two older adults who know themselves and are willing to share that knowledge with one another. They were unrushed, seeming at times to drift into sleep and back out as they moved with each other. They explored, rested, and renewed their passion, and at last, locked in each other’s arms, they slept.

This time, Aaron’s dreams were vivid, like the guided visualization that Pol had taken him on at the Dunes. He recognized that he was dreaming, but had the lucid exploration of a fantasy land that allowed him to direct his steps through the dream and discover at his own pace.

Not surprisingly, the dream was filled with images of Pol and himself—things they had experienced together freely mixed with ways that he could imagine they might grow in their relationship. As he went through his index of memories of her in this dreamscape where nothing seemed to matter except how they moved together, he came inevitably to that first night. He started as he relived the impact that had started him on this strange journey and struggled to the church at the top of the hill. He pushed the door open and as in his first dream so long ago seemed to enter a huge cathedral, much bigger on the inside than on the outside, crowded with people singing and chanting.

The journey to the front of the chancel was much quicker this time as Aaron realized that he was no longer injured, but was looking back on the scene from his present vantage. He looked up at the window and surely did see the stained glass window with its images. This time, however, it was only Pol who stood in the window and turned to beckon him to join her. He approached the window, not knowing how to cross the threshold from the church into the window. She reached out her hand and he found himself sucked out of the sanctuary and into the world of the stained glass window, his hand firmly held by hers. In this new reality, things seemed to be much more vivid, much as they had been in his visualization of the plates beneath the Lake. When he saw a rock, he could see it breathing. Each tree had a personality. Indeed, the objects which he chose to name rock and tree were less like the artifacts of earth than they were new lifeforms that he could not name and so associated with the closest things that they reminded him of. He supposed that must be how it must be to experience something far beyond ones realm of experience. One simply had to call an object by a familiar name, even though one knew that the object was not the same as that which he knew. The name became a kind of allegory that allowed his mind to comprehend what he saw around him.

In this new reality, Aaron realized that he and Pol were walking through a greenhouse. And though there were no spoken words, they were conversing about the things that were being grown in the greenhouse. This, Pol said, is where we grow the worlds. It is more like a nursery than a greenhouse. Each world is an infant growing into a mature being. Each world is at a different stage of its growth. You might say that the earth, our physical world, is an adolescent awash with hormones, loving and passionate in one minute and angry and petulant in another. But she will get through this stage as she did infancy and childhood. She will blossom into the great being that she is destined to become. Aaron looked through cases in the greenhouse seeing other worlds, imagining them as infants, children, adolescents, young adults, and mature beings, engaged in daily communion with others like themselves, while on their surface beings like himself went about their daily tasks oblivious of the greater being of which they were apart.

This must, Aaron thought, be what it is like to be a cell in a body. Whatever life we have it is just one of billions that make up the larger organisms. He walked on through the greenhouse in comfortable companionship with Pol.

We should never forget, however, she said to him, that even an individual cell can influence the well-being of the body. And groups of cells may mutate, become cancerous, or otherwise dangerous to the body if untended to. That is why we are here.

Where are we? Aaron thought.

We are at the center of the architects’ garden, she said in his mind. This is where we, the architects, watch and tend to the planets in our care. In order to affect them, we take on the form of the cells we wish to influence and guide.

A great benign and benevolent entity that watched over this and other worlds, Aaron thought to himself. No wonder religions get started. How else are you supposed to describe what is so far beyond your daily perception? They continued to travel deeper and deeper into the denizens of this architects’ garden. And as they wandered they became aware of many more beings who seemed to tend and take care of the flowering worlds in the greenhouse. But there was a coldness in one portion of the greenhouse—a feeling that not all the beings here were benign or benevolent.

There is always some amount of dissention within any project, Pol was explaining. There are those who believe we should take a more active role in the child’s development, surgically removing undesirable parts and ruling the planet with an iron hand. The prevailing operative is to lead, guide, and inspire, but that is not enough for some. They would rather command, punish, and regulate. It rather reminds one of the government, she laughed in his mind.

For what seemed like hours they wandered through this huge greenhouse which Aaron became more and more aware must comprise the entirety of planetoid development in the universe. The more he wandered, the more he became aware of the staggering size of this task and the number of beings that must be employed to manage it. It was no wonder that there were dark elements; even if they were only a small percentage they would be a huge number.

As they moved through the greenhouse, Aaron could see the window ahead of him again and the journey he would take back into his sleeping body. But before he woke from this dream, he had to ask a question that had begun to burn within him.

Is this heaven? Is this where true believers come after they have left their earthly bodies behind? Will I see you here when we’ve finished our work on earth?

The expression that Pol turned to him was sad and wistful.

You can only see what you can perceive. There is so much more to this existence that I can’t explain. It is like experiencing another dimension. If you do not have that dimension, you will only know those dimensions that exist in your reality. Some cross into this greater existence, but I don’t think they ever become fully a part of it. They are tethered to the dimensions of their home worlds. There is no other way.

She turned sadly toward the window. When we become part of your world, we give up the dimensions that separate us from you. When we shuffle off the part that binds us to your world, we re-enter our full life experience again. If you came to join me, you would still only know that part of me that coincides with your reality.

Even that part, Aaron thought, would be better than any eternity that did not include you at all.

He stepped back through the world window and the chapel was just that: a simple and plain chapel of one room and one door, and one exquisite stained glass window.

Chapter Twelve C: Blind Rage

2005-11-26T10:29:00.000-08:00

For an hour after Nina left the hospital, she drove around the Beltway. Maryland, Virginia, Washington, D.C. They were lines she crossed every day. How had she become so good at crossing lines. Loyalty, ambition, love. When did she cross that line? It was too much to give. But she couldn’t help herself. In the midst of painful memories, she could not separate her emotions from her rational mind. She couldn’t separate person from person. They all blended and merged with as little difference as crossing From Maryland to Virginia to Washington, D.C. They were all one.

She automatically took her turn-off in Alexandria on 395 and soon found herself coming down Independence toward the Capitol. To her left across the long Mall was the White House past the Washington Monument. That was the center of her dreams. The heartbeat of America came from the White House. It was the center where all reform had to start. They could change the world with the right person in the White House. It was Nina’s dream to serve with that administration.

She had no vanity in thinking that she was the one who could actually be the President. She was savvy, but her whole career had been set up around picking the right candidate and attaching herself to her early. She knew that she’d have to choose carefully and that there would be exactly one chance to choose correctly. She recognized Polyhymnia Stamos as that one immediately. The seeds of change were blooming in her. This would be the nation’s first female president, the agent of reform that would stabilize the world situation, bring peace, and ecological rejuvenation. She heard the words with her heart when the Congresswoman spoke.

But a pristine political figure like this needed to be cared for. She couldn’t get her hands dirty in everyday politics. She shouldn’t even know about what goes on to get her elected and where her staff has had to go to ensure her success. That was where Nina would come in. In the name of the great reform, she would be the one who did the dirty work and protected the Congresswoman on her rise.

Where had she crossed the line? Where had she come to look at the dirty work of politics as the purpose instead of the reform that she could facilitate? It was too much.

She was seething with conflicting emotions as she pulled into her parking spot at the Rayburn Office Building. There was no reason to be here at this time on a Sunday night, but she couldn’t stand the thought of returning to her apartment to be alone with the thoughts of Marvin and the price he’d paid for being a double agent working for her. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. There must be something that she could do in her office—something productive that would put her mind on the right track, get her back in the groove of supporting her candidate and moving her election hopes forward.

She stumbled into the office suite and headed toward the door of her private office next to the Congresswoman’s. There was a light on in the office shining under the door. Damn cleaners. They were so careless. Nina pushed the door to Representative Stamos’s office open and froze.

The Congresswoman was there, locked in an embrace with her new press manager, Aaron Case.

It all became suddenly clear. Marvin had been confused with Aaron Case. She’d sent Case to recover the Steel vote and he’d blown it again, exposing a story of mercury poisoning in the Lake. Marvin’s bosses had assumed that it was he who leaked the story and took it out on him. But it was Aaron Case who was at fault. And it was her fault for challenging him to go straighten out the mess. If she’d only known.

But Aaron Case was fouling up everything. He’d stuck his nose in and lost control of the vote, destroyed any chance that they could capture steel workers, dock workers, oil refinery workers, anyone across the northern tier of the state who worked in industry would hate Pol Stamos for destroying their livelihoods. How could he undo so much hard work and then get Marvin killed, too? Marvin who should have had this job in the first place. And then to risk exposing the Congresswoman to a scandal of being involved with an employee! Damn! Didn’t he learn anything from the Clinton administration? This was too much. It was all too much.

They broke their embrace and Pol looked toward the door as she straightened her jacket.

“Nina,” Pol said.

“Shit!” Nina breathed as she turned on her heel and left the office and stormed to her car. “Shit, shit, shit!” she spat through her tears as she unlocked the car and jammed the key into the ignition. “I’ll kill him!”

Chapter Twelve B: Agony in the Office

2005-11-25T21:57:00.000-08:00

Pol paced back and forth in her office. It was nearly ten o’clock Sunday night and the questions in her mind were nearly numbing her with indecision. Aaron had called her as soon as her plane had touched the ground in Washington DC. She had only minutes to talk to him since he had just boarded the last flight out to DC. He wouldn’t get in until nearly midnight, but he told her that he had evidence that her Uncle Alex was to blame for the Mercury in Lake Michigan, and that it was he who had killed the Great Lakes Bill by getting it moved to Commerce. Now as she waited in her office for Aaron to arrive, she found it hard to believe that kindly uncle Alex had been the one who engineered this environmental catastrophe.

Aaron had been adamant that she should call Homeland Security immediately, but every time Pol picked up the phone to make the call she was assailed by doubts. Perhaps the Mercury in the Lake was part of the architect’s plan. Perhaps she shouldn’t interfere and was in this position specifically to intercept any attempt to disclose what was going on.

How was she supposed to know which path was the right one for her to take? Alex had introduced her to the Architects, convinced her that she was one of them. How could he be working against them if he was one as well? Was he? There were always those who were not one of them that were still close to them. They couldn’t hope to do everything themselves. In fact, they were not supposed to receive anything more than elemental instructions to inspire and lead, not to do. It was the world that was supposed to do the work, not the architects.

She should call Alex. He would know what to do. Her hand was on the phone when she realized that she was effectively cut off from him as well. She could play the entire conversation they would have without lifting the receiver. He would deny or justify. Tell her that she should trust him and that he would explain everything later. They would visit the architects together and all would be understood. Above all, you can’t trust the people. That is why you are here, to guide and lead and inspire. Let me worry about what actions to take.

Guide, lead, and inspire. What kind of a leader would allow the plant to be poisoned? She should call Homeland Security right now like Aaron had suggested, but how could she turn in one of her own? There had to be a way to end this agonizing indecision. She had never experienced anything so debilitating.

In the end, she argued with herself until she slept, fitfully at her desk. The phone woke her up.

“Pol, this is Aaron. I’m at the front of the office building, but you know I can’t come up without an escort. Can you send someone down to meet me?”

“I’ll be right there, Aaron. There is no one else here at the moment.” She hung up and went to the entry of the Rayburn Building to escort her guest up. After duly signing him in they walked up the stairs with polite questions about the conditions of the flight and the lateness of the hour. It was 12:30 in the morning. This was going to be a rough night. When they got to the office it was very different than Aaron had imagined. He expected that the staff would have been called in and that at least one agent from Homeland Security would be waiting. On the airplane he had carefully copied the content of his storage card to his laptop and then burned a CD. Now there were three copies and he would shift it to electronic storage as soon as he had a connection.

“Where is everyone?” he asked when they were in Pol’s office. Rather than answer, she kissed him. He did not resist the pull of her lips but when the kiss had broken he looked at her curiously.

“I needed to remind myself of something,” Pol smiled hesitantly. “Now the questions. First of all, I didn’t call anyone in. Secondly, I didn’t call Homeland Security. I couldn’t. I have to see your evidence first. You understand that I want to believe you, in fact I do believe you, I just can’t believe this of Alex Jasper. I’ve known him all my life.”

“So has your great-grandmother,” Aaron said.

“Aunt Hattie?” Pol corrected absently. “Thank you for telling me about her condition. I called on my way from the airport. She seemed so at peace. Told me everything would be all right now, I’d see. By the way, she really likes you.” Aaron hemmed a little.

“It may be because I told her you believed her,” Aaron said sheepishly. “I know that wasn’t my place to do, but it was so important to her. I don’t think she is going to last long. But before I left she told me about Alex.”

“I will forgive you for telling her that I believe her because she is probably dying, but you can’t expect me to accept her stories with the way she feels about Alex.”

“You know?”

“Only that they’ve never gotten along. She objects to my calling her Aunt in one breath and him Uncle in the next. But I’ve never found out why she objected so strongly to him. He was very close to my mother as one of her teachers. Retired by the time I got to know him, although he didn’t seem that old. He’s in his eighties now, though and still doesn’t seem that old. You would think that she would like him since he…” She cut off her story as she realized what she was about to say.

“Since he validated her story about the Lover long ago and your relationship to her?” Aaron filled in.

“No, not that part of the story. He insisted that one of the architect’s messengers would never have gotten involved with a local woman. He was more interested in the fact that I was chosen by the architects.” Pol finished quietly. “But that is not the point here.”

“No,” said Aaron. “The point is that Aunt Hattie believes he is a fraud. Whoever you have met may or may not be part of this group of “architects,” and whatever they’ve told you to do may or may not in the best interest of your constituents.”

“Aaron, you don’t understand and I can’t explain it to you,” Pol said. “I would end up in the same kind of laughable state as Mad Aunt Hattie.”

“Is that it?” Aaron asked incredulously. “Is that why there is no Homeland Security officer waiting here to look at this evidence? Are you so afraid that what you think about the Architects might be wrong that you can’t act?”

“Aaron, back off,” Pol interjected. “I have never been in a position of doubt before. I know that the plan is in the best interest of the earth. I can’t discern if Alex’s role is part of the plan.”

“That’s because you know that the plan may be in what they perceive as the best interest of the earth, but that the people on the earth might be disposable. You’d stand by and watch millions die if you thought that a thousand years down the line the earth would be better for it.” Aaron was fuming. Somehow he thought that Pol would incensed that Alex would do something like this. He thought she would put the people above the architects, whoever they were, who were calling the shots in her career.

“Show me, Aaron,” she said. “What evidence do you have that Alex is involved in this? I’m trying to figure a way to save the workers their jobs when the steel industry collapses because someone, probably inspired by you, broke a news story about Mercury poisoning in the Lake. You are quick to judge my faith in people that I’ve known for years and expect me, based on a few kisses to believe you instead. Show me.”

“Pol, I don’t expect you to believe because I love you,” Aaron said quietly. “I expect you to believe because every fiber of your being tells you that it’s right. Here. I’ve put everything on this CD. Let’s plug it in.” Pol went to her computer and logged in, then hesitated.

“I don’t want this recorded on the network yet,” she said. “Show me on your computer.” Aaron logged onto his own laptop and slipped the CD into the drive.

“I hired a private investigator to find out why they were dredging in the Harbor. I knew from our visit that there was no Kudzu in the Lake. Don’t ask me how, I’ve never understood it. I’m surprised that you didn’t know it right away as well. When you took me out to the Dunes it was as if I could see every detail of the Lake’s geography. There simply weren’t any foreign weeds. There was, however, a leaking container of poison. That’s all I knew. That, and that if water kept leaking through the channel they’ve dug, there is likely to be a city-flattening earthquake in southern Lake Michigan. You showed me all that in the visualization you led me through.

“She, my private investigator, followed a couple leads I had including one from the County Auditor that there was mercury in the water and found that all of the steel mill’s mercury was accounted for. That means that releasing this story could only damage the mill. Then she donned scuba gear and actually dove off the shore near the Steel Mill. She was able to mark the exact spot where the canister is located. You can see the photo that she sent. She noted the markings which bear the exact same serial number as the canister locked safely in the mill’s laboratory. That got her suspicions up, but when she surfaced, it was yards away from a meeting that was taking place on that very secluded strand of beach. She lay in the water and was able to hear snatches that said payment was made and player one could leave any time. She took these pictures. I had a database already prepared of images of people we assumed would be key players in anything that happened in and around Burns Ditch. That included the harbormaster, and the executive managers of several industries stretching all along the Lakeshore. This one matched. He’s general manager of the Hoosier Steel Mill that’s located right next to the harbor.” Aaron kept moving through the evidence on his laptop showing Pol images and tracking her reaction which had not varied from intent interest since he’d begun.

“But it was the other guy that seemed to be the boss, making the payment. It was early morning and getting lighter as the time went by, so she had to submerge when it looked like they were turning toward the water and she lost a lot of the last part of what was being said. But as soon as they were on the move again, so was she. She moved through the woods to her car and was waiting when the player two left the parking lot. She followed him into town where he stopped at a truckstop outside LaPorte. She was able to change out of her gear and get a cup of coffee and still be in a good position when the guy came out of the restaurant. This is the picture she shot.” Pol gasped audibly as Alex’s picture came up on the screen.

“That’s still just a possibility,” Pol said. “Alex lives near Michigan City. She might have picked up the wrong car.”

“I would consider that a possibility, too,” Aaron explained. “But Susan is a professional, trained by army intelligence in the first Iraq war. She followed Mr. Jasper all day. Right to Twelve Oaks.”

“That’s still reasonable,” Pol began. “He often comes out there to visit.” She cut off as Aaron played the recording that he had taken on his cell phone.

“Beating the pulp out of him is not likely to be the right decision,” said the first voice.

“Too late for that. The order has been given already,” said a second voice.

“But it’s not going to go away,” said the first.

“Bury it,” said the second.

“Look, it was easy to kill the Great Lakes Bill. I just needed to call in a few favors. But dumping mercury in the Lake had to come to the surface sometime. And the steel mill has already accounted for every drop they’ve stored. I wouldn’t be surprised if Homeland Security is involved now that they ran that story.”

“Whatever possessed him to pass on that kind of information?” the second voice asked. “He knew it wouldn’t do his employers any good, or anyone else. We’ve reached a critical point in this plan. He’s got to be taken out of circulation and everyone pulled back. They can’t possible locate that canister before it’s too late.”

“Wasn’t there any other way to do this?”

“No.”

The recording beeped and ended. Pol’s reaction was not what Aaron expected. He expected shock, maybe even anger, but Pol had gone rigid as if paralyzed by what she heard.

“Pol,” Aaron began. “I’m sorry. I know how fond you are of Alex Jasper.”

“It’s not Alex,” Pol began. “I mean, yes, it is his voice. Yes he has to have been the one that killed the Great Lakes Bill. But it’s the other. Couldn’t you hear it?”

“Sounded like a mean son of a bitch,” Aaron said. “Other than that I don’t recognize it.”

“It’s more than mean,” Pol said. “For lack of a better word and at risk of sounding like a right wing platitude, it was evil. It is not the architect.”

“How can you be sure?” Aaron asked. “You told me yourself that you’d only met the architect once.”

“Aaron, I know you were there and you heard at least part of what was going on. Yes, I was in the church the night of your accident. I dragged you out of the sanctuary when you’d passed out and Alex brought the chair and rang the bell then left while I called for help.” Aaron was surprised that Pol was telling him this. Now he had to wonder exactly how much of what he remembered of that night was real and not hallucination as he had first thought. “Think Aaron,” Pol said. “You heard the architect’s voice. What was it like?” Aaron closed his eyes and tried to focus on the hazy, drug-and-pain-influenced memories of that night just six or seven weeks ago.

“Well,” he began, “the voices were confused part of the time—almost like there was a chorus. But when she spoke she…” He cut himself off abruptly and looked up at Pol. “The architect is a she,” he said. “And there was none of the same choral backup like I heard before. This is almost like it was taking place in an isolation chamber.”

“Exactly,” Pol responded. “The creature that was talking to Alex is something completely apart from the architect. What can he be thinking? And why would they meet there?”

“Pol,” Aaron said apologetically, “I came in here thinking that we should go to Homeland Security. And I still think we should send them the info on where to pick up the canister. But before we turn over the rest of the evidence, I think you should meet with the architect. I don’t know who she is, but you have to be confident that this is right. If you can’t point an accusing finger and believe what you are saying, then nothing we send to Homeland is going to make a bit of difference.”

“I don’t know how,” Pol said simply.

“What do you mean?” Aaron asked.

“I don’t know how to contact her. Alex set it up the last time. All I had to do was show up.” Pol’s frustration was cut short by the phone ringing. “Who would be trying to reach me here at this hour?” she asked as she punched the speaker phone on. “Hello?”

“Representative Stamos, this is Warren Memorial Home calling. We’ve been working our way down the list of numbers that you left us for emergency. I’m glad we’ve reached you. I’m afraid we have sad news for you. Your aunt has passed away. She died peacefully in her sleep about an hour ago. The nurse on duty was in the room when she passed and said that she just took a deep breath and then went still. The doctor was called, but I’m afraid that she was too frail to revive.” Pol was still and Aaron could hardly breathe. He realized how dear Aunt Hattie had become to him. A tear ran from his eye as he listened to Pol calmly confirm arrangements for her great-aunt/grandmother and indicate that she would be there tomorrow afternoon to see to things. Then she disconnected.

Suddenly a flood of tears fell from her eyes and a great sob overwhelmed her as she threw herself into Aaron’s arms. He was overcome with grief himself.

“Oh Aaron, I’m so sorry,” she sobbed. “I should have told her myself. Thank you for putting her at peace before she died. I do believe she is my great-grandmother. I know it is true.” They held each other tightly as they wept, trying to console each other for losses that were strangely different for each of them, but very much the same in their impact. At last Pol raised her eyes to Aaron’s and looked at him for a long moment.

“I guess we will meet with the architect after all,” she said softly.

“I thought you didn’t know how to contact her,” Aaron said puzzled.

“I don’t. But she always comes to funerals.”

Chapter Twelve A: Oath of Vengeance

2005-11-25T12:33:00.000-08:00

It had not been a good weekend for Nina. Saturday afternoon she got the call from the Congresswoman indicating that there was a report in the Michigan City News-Dispatch Saturday morning. By Sunday morning the story had been picked up by the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times and by the South Bend Tribune. She could only expect that the story would be widely circulated nationally by Monday morning. She called in her key staff members and they began assessing immediately what role the Congresswoman might be cast in as a result of this news. Most agreed that this was generally good news for the Congresswoman’s fight for the Dunes and might even revive the chances of getting the Great Lakes bill out of committee. But her analyst, Al Sisson, had brought up the point that this might alienate the steel workers even further from Pol as a result of likely job crisis that would come in the wake of an industry shake-up. In a way, Nina greeted this a good news as it would make it much harder for Aaron Case to keep his job. But it was still critical to get it resolved before the Congresswoman started any broader statewide campaign. She’d get Marvin on it, she decided. It would be a great boost to the campaign and her standing if she could ride in to the rescue with a solution in hand.

Sunday afternoon she sent everyone home to get some rest before the Congresswoman came in on Monday morning. Why she’d gone to Indiana this weekend was a mystery to Nina. It was not on her schedule and not like her to take just Saturday and Sunday back home. Typically if she was going back, it was for a four-day weekend. She fought back a suspicion that she was planning campaign strategy with Aaron Case. She was not going to be cut out of that loop if she could help it. Probably time to exercise some authority and call him back to Washington to work on this new development. Timing was everything, however. She’d wait until about ten this evening and call him to tell him he needed to be at staff meeting at 8:00 in the morning. Let him go without sleep tonight, she thought. We’ll see how charming he is in the morning then.

She was about to leave the office when her phone rang. She turned back to her desk and automatically picked it up without looking to see who was calling, assuming it was one of the others who had left a few minutes previously.

“Nina Patterson?” the voice asked. Upon her affirmation it continued, “This is reception at Georgetown University Hospital. I’m calling because a person who was just admitted asked that we call you urgently. Mr. Marvin Jackson has just been admitted through emergency. He is badly injured and was barely lucid enough to give us your name. If you could come, it would be advisable to get here as soon as possible.”

“Yes, of course,” Nina responded. “I’ll leave immediately.” A calm professional automaton took over her voice as inside her mind raced in near panic. Marvin was hospitalized. He must have relatives or friends closer to him than Nina; why would he call her? And what did the receptionist mean “advisable to get here as soon as possible?” What had happened to him?

She raced to her car and navigated the late Sunday tourist traffic the short distance to Georgetown University Hospital. She parked in the emergency lot and rushed through the door. A sign at the receptionist’s desk reminded her to “Please turn off cell phones in the emergency room.” She fumbled for her phone as she told the receptionist who she was. To her surprise she was ushered immediately into a triage room where Marvin was lying. Doctors and nurses busily worked over him and she was handed a surgical mask and led to Marvin’s head.

“That’s everything we can do,” said one. “Keep him aspirated and let me know if there is a change. I want those x-rays stat. As soon as he’s done talking with his girlfriend start that morphine drip.” Then the doctor turned to Nina. “He’s refused pain-killers until he saw you, so be kind and be quick.”

“What happened?” Nina asked as she knelt beside Marvin and leaned toward him. He turned pain-glazed eyes toward her.

“They said I betrayed them. Story on poison,” he whispered. “You’re not safe. I told them. Thought they’d stop.”

“Who are they?” Nina asked. “Did they do this to you?”

“They’ll go after Stamos, too,” he whispered seeming to ignore her questions. “Never saw them before. Nina,” his body stiffened as he fought off the pain another moment, “I don’t think they’re Steel. The industry’s rough, but it’s not criminal. Somebody else is calling the shots. They’re dangerous. Very dangerous.” He stiffened again. Nina had a hundred questions she wanted to ask but she couldn’t watch him suffer any more.

“Start the morphine,” she said looking up at the anesthetician. Then she looked back at Marvin and gently stroked his hair. “Don’t worry baby. We’ll be safe. We’ll find them and punish them, I swear it. You get well. Heal up and we’ll go to Jamaica again. You know you want that. Just get well, baby. Just get well.” Tears swelled up in Nina’s eyes as the morphine drip took hold and Marvin drifted into oblivion. In moment’s the doctor’s returned and she was pushed back against a wall as they rushed Marvin out to surgery. She heard words but could only make sense of a few: ruptured kidney, punctured lung, broken, broken, broken, move move move. In moments they had wheeled him out of the room and she was left alone. She wandered back out to the reception area to wait and asked what happened. A police officer made his way to her in a few minutes.

“Are you related to Mr. Jackson?” the officer said.

“No,” Nina answered. “We date. He asked to see me before they put him under morphine.”

“I need to ask if he said anything to you that would indicate who else was involved in this,” the officer said.

“What happened?” Nina asked.

“A witness said that she saw his car go into Sligo Creek off the parkway. She called 911 immediately and that is probably what has saved his life up till now. But the doctors have indicated that the injuries are not consistent with an automobile accident. He’s been severely beaten.”

“My God!” Nina whispered. “He said ‘they thought he’d betrayed them,’ but he didn’t say who they were. He said that it wasn’t Steel, though.”

“Who is Steel?” asked the officer.

“He’s a lobbyist for the steel industry,” Nina replied. “He seemed to think it was important that I know it wasn’t them that did it. But he also said that he thought I was in danger, and perhaps my boss.”

“And who is your boss?” the officer continued. He’d been writing nearly every word that she’d spoken.

“Representative Stamos, Sixth District Indiana,” Nina gave the official designation.

“We’ll look into that as well,” the officer said. “Miss Patterson, I’d like to give you some paper and ask that you record as closely as you can your conversation with Mr. Jackson in the emergency room. It may provide a vital clue to what we are looking for. I don’t know if this is gang related, organized crime, or a bunch of buddies that got upset over a football game. One way or another, we’ll get to the bottom of this.”

Nina agreed and began the laborious process of recalling as close as she could everything that Marvin had said. Beaten. Dumped in Sligo Creek. Who would do something like that? It had to do with the story that had broken over the weekend in northern Indiana. Marvin must have known about the mercury in the water but hadn’t told her. Damn it. She could have used that kind of information in advance. What did he think she was paying him for? But he didn’t have to go and get beaten up over it. Who would have done that if it wasn’t the people he worked for on his day job. She’d have to think this through. Who stood to gain from the catastrophy.

She neatly recopied her draft and folded the notes she’d made and put them in her purse. Eventually the doctor came back out and gave her a description of what they were able to do. Marvin was in critical condition and it was too early to tell if he would recover. He ran a list of broken bones, ruptured, bruised or punctured organs. His nearest relatives were listed as being in Indiana, therefore, as she was the only one they knew of here in Washington, she could be with him in his room if she wanted to. Nina didn’t really know why, but she fiercely wanted to be with Marvin. It wasn’t right that someone like him should suffer alone. She’d leave when his family arrived.

She sat in the room next to him. He was unconscious. She held his hand for a while, but finally slumped in sleep in the chair. About 11:00 p.m. she was awoken by a high-pitched tone and people scrambling into the room and around Marvin’s bed. It was a nightmare. She was backed into a corner by the press of doctors and nurses wheeling equipment and shouting instructions. After ten minutes that seemed like an eternity it was all quiet again. The cart was wheeled away. The doctors began to clear the room and it was the last one who turned from the bed and saw Nina still in the corner of the room.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “We did everything that we could, but it wasn’t enough.” Nina looked at the still shape of Marvin, peacefully lying on the bed and realized slowly that he was dead. Tears streamed down her face as she approached the bed. The doctor said he’d give her a few minutes alone with him before they came in to take care of things. She stood over his bed and held his hand as the tears flowed freely. She hadn’t realized how much she cared for him—for everyone. She had to protect the Cogresswoman. She would be at the office to meet her when she came in. And she had to be with Marvin and see that he was given into his parents care. It was just so wrong. It’s not how it was supposed to turn out.

“I’ll kill them for this,” she swore. “Whoever did this, I’ll kill them.”

Chapter Eleven D: Encounter with Alex

2005-11-23T15:40:00.000-08:00

After lunch on Sunday Aaron drove Pol to the airport so she could return to Washington. It was a sweet parting. They had touched each other deeply during the night and morning spent together. Both knew they were approaching a decision point in their relationship. They were, in short, falling in love with each other. Physically, they had not progressed past falling asleep in each others arms on the sofa, an even that Aaron’s tender ribs were reminding him of all the way back home. But, he mused, that much discomfort was definitely worth while. They had talked and bantered back and forth all morning, avoiding the moment when they would need to leave for the airport. When they went to the barn to get Aaron’s car, Pol walked past the Subaru and motioned Aaron to follow her.

“I thought perhaps you’d like to see this since you know so much of Aunt Hattie’s story,” Pol said. She pulled the tarp off one of the farm vehicles and to Aaron’s surprise he saw the 1923 Roadster. “Aunt Hattie could never part with it,” Pol said. “She made her brother promise to keep it safe and, well, it’s been here in the barn ever since.” It brought a smile to Aaron as he surveyed they cracked leather and rusty frame of the car. It was a collector’s dream. It wouldn’t take all that much to restore it. They re-covered the old car and headed out to the airport in Aaron’s 78-year-newer Subaru.

Now as he drove back toward Fort Wayne in the waning light of the March afternoon, he was overwhelmed with a desire to see the old church. He had become so steeped in the family history that he felt he had to finish this last investigation, and Pol had told him where the key was. It would only take a few minutes. He swung off the interstate at Markle and headed back toward Pol’s house.

As he headed north out of Uniondale his cellphone rang. Jack was on the line and was excited.

“I just heard from Susan,” Jack said without preamble. “We’ve got big problems and you need to get in touch with Washington pronto.”

“Okay, what do we have,” Aaron said. “It appears that Hoosier Steel may not be at fault, and that the EPA is trying to keep a lid on this in order to investigate a potential terrorist threat. Homeland Security is prowling all over the area. It could be the basis of an eco-terrorist attack.”

“I’ll let the Congresswoman know as soon as she gets in. I just got her on a plane about an hour ago.” Aaron said. “In general, I want to call everybody in. No getting involved with a Homeland Security investigation. Call everybody off. This is not something we want to get in the middle of. Where’s Susan now?”

“She said she was on the move south of Fort Wayne someplace, but wouldn’t go into detail. She says she has her cell phone switched to silent but she’ll call us later this evening,” Jack said.

“Reel her in as fast as you can, Jack,” Aaron said. “I’m headed generally toward Fort Wayne now. I’ll come directly to you.”

“Drive carefully,” Jack said and hung up.

Aaron turned up the road toward the old church thinking that he’d look around the cemetery a few minutes and then poke his head into the building. But as he crested the hill he saw that another car was already parked in front of the church. He pulled in across the road just as a second car pulled in front of the church. He saw Susan jump out of the car. He quickly slipped out of his car and gave a long low whistle. Susan ducked behind her cardoor and Aaron was surprised to see a gun in her hand. She motioned him closer and he joined her behind her car.

“God, Susan is that necessary?” Aaron asked breathlessly as he ducked down beside her.

“I don’t know, but I’m scared to death,” she whispered. “I’m sure they are meeting in this church. That’s his car.”

“They who and him who?” Aaron asked.

“The terrorists,” Susan said quietly. “I need to get close enough to hear what they’re saying.”

“There’s only one entrance based on my experience with this church,” Aaron said. “We should check to see if there are open windows.”

“In March?” Susan asked incredulously. “If that’s the only entrance, then that’s where we need to be. Do you have a recorder on you?” In a way it was a silly question. Aaron almost always had a digital Dictaphone in a pocket somewhere. But he’d been on a date last night, not working. He flipped open his phone.

“I can record a few minutes on this,” he said. “Nothing too long.”

“That’s okay,” Susan answered. “We shouldn’t spend any more time than we have to. Let’s go.” She took the point and opened the door to the church. After checking the foyer she motioned Aaron in and closed the door behind them. They could hear voices in the sanctuary. The door was closed and Aaron slid up next to it. He carefully edged it open ever so slightly and slid his hand inside with his phone on record. He thumbed his remote earpiece on and listened to the conversation.

“Beating the pulp out of him is not likely to be the right decision,” said the first voice.

“Too late for that. The order has been given already,” said a second voice.

“But it’s not going to go away,” said the first.

“Bury it,” said the second.

“Wasn’t there any other way to do this?”

“No.”

Aaron’s earpiece beeped indicating that his time ran out on this recording. He pulled his hand in restart the recording but Susan signaled him out the door. Outside she moved quickly to her car.

“We’ve got enough,” she said. “We put that recording together with the photos I’ve got and send them off to Homeland Security. They do the rest.”

“What photos?” Aaron asked.

“I’ve snapped pix of one of them prowling around the lakeshore.”

“Send them to me and forget you ever heard about this. I’ll take it from here,” Aaron said.

“You can’t sit on this, Aaron,” Susan said.

“Funny, that’s just what Lonnie said when he left and blew this story all over everyplace. Don’t worry. I’m sending the whole package to the Congresswoman and asking her to alert the authorities. I don’t want any trail leading back to you or anyone else who researched this.”

“Fine. I’ll see you at poker night sometime.” Susan closed her car door and pulled out. Aaron got in his car and drove away in the opposite direction. He was just turning north out of Ossian when his phone beeped with a message. He flipped it open and saw the message gleam from Susan. He used his thumb to download the photo while he drove and watched the road. When it beeped again indicating the down load was finished Aaron glanced back down at the phone.

What he saw surprised him so much that he nearly drove off the road. He quickly checked his rear-view mirror and did a spinning u-turn in the middle of Route 1 and headed south. In 15 minutes he was pulling into the drive of the Warren Memorial Home and running up the stairs to Aunt Hattie’s room.

He raised his hand to knock, but the door swung open. The room was empty. He backed out of the room and ran into Amanda Frederiks rushing down the hall.

“Oh, hello, Mr. Case,” she said. She looked like she had been running all day. Sunday evening shift must be a tough one.

“Amanda, can you tell me where Aunt Hattie is?” Aaron blurted out in one breath.

“Oh, the poor dear had a seizure and fell during afternoon tea,” Amanda said. “She’s in the hospital unit. We haven’t been able to reach her niece to let her know.”

“Her niece is flying at the moment. I’ll call her as soon as her plane lands,” Aaron said. “Which way to the hospital unit?” Amanda pointed the way and Aaron was off.

Hattie was in a private hospital bed and seemed to be asleep, but as he slipped in the door she turned her head and smiled weakly at him.

“Dearie, is it Friday already? I seem to have lost track of time,” she said. “I’m simply not presentable.”

“No, it’s only Sunday, Aunt Hattie,” Aaron answered softly. “I heard you fell at tea and I rushed right over,” he said lying a little for her benefit. How badly hurt was she?

“Everything seemed to stop working at once,” Hattie said. “My legs just gave out on me and then I couldn’t even push myself up with my hands. And I’m so tired. I don’t know what to do.”

“I’ll let you rest,” Aaron said softly. He didn’t have the heart to ask her questions at a time like this, no matter how desperately he needed to know the answers.

“No, no,” Hattie exclaimed softly. “Please don’t go. I don’t want to be alone. Ask me questions and I’ll tell you stories of my wonderful youth in the country.” Aaron pulled a chair up next to her bed and wished that he had a recorder with him. “What would you like to know, Dearie?” Hattie asked.

“Well,” said Aaron, “I suppose you know a lot of family history. Where does Uncle Alex fit in?” Hattie started in the bed and the heart monitor raced until she had settled back and turned her head toward him.

“Alexander Jasper is an old fraud,” Hattie said as vehemently as she could muster. “He’s neither uncle nor nephew to anyone in my family.” She coughed and Aaron was not sure his questioning was doing her any good. She sucked in a lungful of air and then began again. “I’ll tell you what happened. It was soon after the war and I’d told Claire and Allison my story. The little snip started spreading around school that I was mad, and that I believed spacemen had come around and used the church as a spaceship. One of her teachers was an opportunistic young man named Alexander Jasper. I didn’t know him, but he’d heard of me. It turns out he had seen me once performing in a regional theater. You must understand that I was quite a pretty girl, even in my forties.

“Well one day he showed up at my door in Fort Wayne where I was living at the time. He was very familiar with me. Called me his dear Mattie. He actually insinuated that he was the reincarnation of Harper MacKenzie, born on the night that Harper died. He said he’d come back to me and that he was there for me.” She began coughing again and Aaron was afraid that he’d gone too far. She had a tear leaking from her eye when she started again.

“Mark my words, Aaron,” Hattie said through her tear. “When you have known one of them, you know them. It is as if your heart strings are attached and you can’t help but love him. You know that he is good from the very bottom of your being because nothing so heavenly could ever be bad.” She was crying freely now. “My Harper could never have done an evil thing. It simply wasn’t in his nature.

“You know what I mean, Aaron,” she went on. “I can tell that you have felt it too. It is how I know that Polly is one of them. It doesn’t have anything to do with genetics. It is where they choose to be.” She squeezed her eyes shut as if to block out something very painful.

“That man failed with me, but he began on Pol as soon as she was born. He knew that Allison would have none of it, but Pol was another story. He so wanted to be one of them that he probably actually believes that he is one. And believe me, they have no compunction against using a willing vessel. I’ve no doubt that they use him, too. But he has no discernment. He can’t tell good from evil. He can’t even tell anymore that he is not one of them. But there is nothing you can do to become one. Believe me, I would have if I could.” It was becoming difficult for Hattie to keep talking through her tears.

“My poor little Polly. I worry so much for her. My dear, dear little grandchild. He’ll lead her someplace that she shouldn’t go if he can.” Aaron had tears in his own eyes as well.

“Why are they here, Hattie?” he asked quietly. “How could they ask him or her to do evil things?”

“They take care of the planet. We are just a little spec on it. The planet sometimes needs to shake off some of itself in order to grow. If it’s not doing the job well enough itself, they prune and trim to help it along. We’re just limbs and leaves on the great world tree. Sometimes we need to be pruned.”

The description sent chills down Aaron’s spine as he remembered his vision of the kind of catastrophe that would be caused if there were a major earthquake in Lake Michigan near the heavily populated area of Chicago. It could cast the global economy into chaos and bring the world into a new dark ages. Was that what “they,” whoever they were, were trying to do? Weren’t there other ways?

Aaron was brought out of his internal questing for answers by the sudden limpness of Hattie’s hand in his own. Alarmed he looked at her again. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing shallowly. Assuming she was asleep, he gently laid her hand down on her bed and rose to leave. Her eyes fluttered open and she looked at him.

“She doesn’t even know who she is,” Hattie whispered. “She doesn’t know who I am.” Aaron made a snap decision.

“Yes she does, Aunt Hattie,” he said comfortingly. “She told me herself that she is your great-granddaughter. She is really very proud of the fact.”

“Is she?” whispered Aunt Hattie. “I’m so very proud of her.” With that she drifted off fully into sleep and Aaron left the room. On his way home he called Jack.

“Can you get me a flight out to DC tonight?” Aaron asked when Jack answered his phone. “I’m in the car and I’ve got too much going on to make the flight arrangement. I need to pick up my suit and head straight for the airport.”

“Have you talked to Representative Stamos yet?” Jack asked after confirming that he could get the flight reservation.

“She should be arriving in DC about now,” Aaron said. “I can’t give her this evidence over the phone. I’ve got to see her in person.”

“Why not?” Jack answered.

“I know who planted the mercury, and she’s not going to like it a bit,” Aaron said. “I need to be there.”

Chapter Eleven B: Date Night

2005-11-22T22:17:00.000-08:00

Aaron dressed three times before he was ready to leave the house Saturday evening, then he tossed a change of clothes in an overnight bag, just in case they decided to go for a nighttime walk in the country.

Who was he kidding? He just didn’t know if he’d be coming home that night. He just didn’t know what to expect, or to hope.

He’d talked to Pol twice during the day. The first time was to brief her on what would be appearing in the Michigan City newspaper that morning. He certainly didn’t want her caught off-guard if she happened to get phone calls this morning. He gave her some words to use regarding being surprised by the news, but not surprised that something was going on, citing her opposition to the increased industrialization of the Lakeshore, but also committing herself to undertaking an investigation into the allegations which she sincerely hoped were not going to affect the steel industry or the thousands of loyal workers employed by it. He was thankful that she didn’t outright ask him if he had anything to do with the report, but answered truthfully when she asked if he had leaked the information that it was the Republican County Auditor who had leaked the report.

The second time he talked to Pol, the developments were obviously just an excuse to talk. Pol had called Nina in Washington to let her know the development and put the staff on alert. Aaron had been trying unsuccessfully to reach Susan for further information. They talked about where to go for dinner, opting for a quiet restaurant in Huntington instead of driving into Fort Wayne. The chances that she would be recognized there were considerably lower than if they had chosen Muncie or Marion. She laughed nervously when she explained that she just didn’t want to be bothered by business if she was out on a purely social… She stopped before she said date, but was at a loss to call it anything else.

Aaron drove out to the house in the country, passing the little church at Twelve Oaks. It was quiet, but its windows seemed to have a soft glow of their own. He shook his head. He had to be imagining things. There would certainly be no one there at this hour on a Saturday night. It must be the sunset filtering through the windows on the opposite side of the church. As he passed the spot where he’d had his accident a month and a half ago, he purposefully did not turn back to look at the west side of the church to confirm his assumption. He pulled into the big yard noting that it looked deserted, but he could see tire tracks in the last muddy bits of snow leading to the garage.

Pol had spent an equal amount of time and uncertainty preparing for the evening and was dressed in a casual dress that came to mid-calf with boots beneath it. Aaron reflected on how very rural Indiana she looked, in all the good ways that could be taken. Dinner was a delightful, long, lovely affair. They talked about nearly every subject that could come up except politics. Pol talked about what it was like to grow up in the sixties and seventies in rural Indiana, and Aaron thought how he should be recording the interview for his book. Not that he had any shortage of subjects for growing up in the sixties and seventies. If anything, that was the era that he had the most content on. But that reminded him that eventually he needed to bring up what he’d found out about Mad Aunt Hattie. He decided instead to see what she would bring up regarding her family tree. Much to his delight she had a great deal of information that she was willing to share that filled in many of the blanks that he had encountered regarding Mad Aunt Hattie’s recollection of family history prior to her own childhood.

“Well, we’ve known our family history back to the early 1800s passed down from generation to generation in a big old family Bible,” Pol said. “I guess it is sad in a way that I’ll never have children and the line will die out, but it has been a fixture in this area for two hundred years.”

“Who was the first?” Aaron asked.

“My ancestor, as far back as we know, was Elijah Strongman,” Pol began. “He was the son of a Miami Indian chief and his white wife. Now, I know that every story starts out with the son of an Indian chief, but that is what was passed down. In family legends, every Indian was a chief if he is in your family tree. You must know from your familiarity with the area that our farm was on the reservation when it was opened up for settlement. Elijah was one of the few of the tribe who filed a Land Patent in 1838. No one knows exactly how old he was or when he was born, but he signed his name with an X on the deed. The only name we have for his wife is Faith Strongman. Her headstone doesn’t have a date on it either, so we’re not sure when she died, or if she outlived Elijah and left the area. I should mention that the family Bible records that Elijah built the church at Twelve Oaks, though the notation was made long after he was dead, so we can’t be certain. It seems unlikely, however, since the church is not timber but Indiana Limestone.

“There were three children of that marriage who survived infancy. My ancestor was the eldest, named Elisha. There was a very Biblical succession in this family. He married and had just one son who inherited the property. His name was Samuel. That would be my great grandfather. His eldest son Roy inherited the property, but died without issue leaving it to his sister Claire Berne. Her husband was killed in the war and she lived with Roy for several years with her child, my mother, Allison. Mama died four years ago, but my father, Ari Stamos, is living in a retirement home in LaPorte where he was from before he moved out here with Mama when she inherited the property in 1970. Since I am not married, we are listed as Joint Tenants with Right to Survivorship on the property. Someday I suppose it will rest solely in my possession and it is sad to think that I am the last of the line. There may be distant cousins from one of Elijah’s or Elisha’s other children, but my grandmother’s siblings all died without issue as the big Bible says. Except for one who is not dead yet and may well be the right person to leave the property to since she is likely to outlive any other family members as she’s already gone past everyone but me. She’s in a retirement home in Warren.”

There it was, all the pieces confirmed as Hattie had told him. He would really like to get a look at that family Bible. He was about to tell Pol about his meetings with Hattie, but at that moment the check came, he paid it and they moved to the door. It had begun to snow while they were in the restaurant, one of those rare late season snows that come down in huge wet flakes and instantly turn to mush on the streets and sidewalks. Only where they clung to dried bits of grass and bush did they begin to accumulate.

“I think I’d better get you home,” Aaron said. “This could just be a flurry, but it could make driving hazardous if we wait any longer.” He would just have to hold that story until later, or some other time. “What denomination is the old church across from the cemetery?” Aaron asked when they were on the road.

“Oh, I don’t know that it has a denomination,” Pol said. “It’s more like a family chapel. There is a trust fund and a board of trustees that sees to its maintenance and upkeep along with the cemetery. But aside from funerals and the occasional request for a wedding, it just sits there as a monument to the faith of our fathers, whatever it was.”

“I was curious, since my recollection is so fuzzy about that night, how it came to be unlocked just when I needed to find shelter and help,” Aaron said casually.

“Could have been left accidentally open if there was a funeral that day,” Pol said cautiously. “There’s a key on top of the window ledge that people can use if they want to stop in. That’s why we keep the bell-rope tied up out of reach. Occasionally we get kids going in to make mischief. It’s not common, though.”

They chatted further as Aaron maneuvered through Uniondale and started north along the county road. The snow was coming down rapidly now and the road was covered. Visibility was low and Aaron drove cautiously. He hit a couple slick spots under the snow, but because he was driving slowly he was able to keep control of the car.

When they reached Pol’s house she had been silent for a mile while Aaron concentrated on the road. He turned into the driveway and she was instantly in command again.

“Pull over toward the barn there. I’ll open the door so you can pull the car in and keep it sheltered from the storm,” she said pointing.

“I think I’d better not stop,” Aaron said. “This could get really bad tonight.”

“Listen here,” Pol said looking at Aaron sharply. He stopped the car in front of her house and turned to her. He was taken quite by surprise by the kiss she planted firmly on his lips. “I found you with your car wrapped around a telephone pole in a snowstorm. I’m not about to send you out in another one tonight and risk losing you to the same kind of storm. Pull up to the barn and I’ll open the door.” She opened her door and walked ahead of the car to the barn and slid open the door.

The barn had the appearance of vacancy. It wasn’t derelict, meaning it was in good repair, but what machinery was in there was parked neatly at one end of the barn covered with tarps. There was no hay or grain storage and no animals. When he got out of the car, Pol called to him from the barn door.

“Bring your bag. You’re staying the night.” Aaron blushed to think that she had seen or known that he had an overnight bag with him, but he grabbed it none-the-less. They closed the door and marched to the house. Inside they pulled off coats and boots and made their way into the kitchen where Pol put water on the stove. “Would you like a cup of tea?” she asked. Aaron nodded, still not quite able to anticipate what was about to happen under these circumstances. “If you’d go into the living room, there’s a fireplace. I’ve had it rewired for gas so I don’t send a lot of wood-smoke into the air. The switch is to the right of the fireplace, you just have to flip it on. It really puts out quite a lot of heat and will warm the room up quickly.”

Aaron went into the living room to find a comfortable seating area with big sofa’s around the fireplace. The walls and shelves of the room were covered with family photographs that it appeared went back a hundred years. He flipped the switch and the gas log ignited. He could feel the instant rush of heat on his back as he turned away from the fireplace to survey the room.

Pol was standing directly behind him and he nearly stepped on her as he turned. She looked at him and he leaned forward slightly to kiss her forehead gently.

“Do you mind if we just sit and talk in front of the fire for a while?” Pol asked.

“I’d love to,” Aaron said. His confident and take-charge congresswoman and sometimes guardian angel looked wary, perhaps a little scared. It was suddenly obvious to Aaron that she didn’t entertain men in her home very often, if ever. “Can I help with the tea?”

“Oh the kettle hasn’t come to a boil yet,” she said. “Go ahead and have a seat.” She was suddenly more light-hearted, much more like she had been earlier in the evening.

“Are these all family photos?” Aaron asked.

“Yes,” Pol answered as she retreated back to the kitchen. “When you inherit a home that has been in the family for nearly two hundred years, you inherit the family with it. I wouldn’t be surprised if you stumbled on Grandpa Elijah’s tin cup somewhere in this place.”

“I can well imagine,” Aaron said as he walked around the room looking at photographs. What a treasure this was. What a great genealogical find it would make. He paused in front of one photo and picked it up. It could only be one thing. An elegant young woman, stood next to a little girl, age perhaps 12. They stood in front of an old car and Aaron recognized it as the Roadster from the picture that Jack had shown him. It could only be Aunt Hattie.

“I should have known that the historian in you would be all over the pictures. I suppose you want to see the family Bible, too,” Pol said coming into the room with two steaming mugs. Aaron could see the teabag tabs hanging draped around the handles as she set them down on a coffee table in front of the fire.

“I’d love to see the Bible,” Aaron said setting the picture down. Pol glanced over at the picture he had set down.

“That’s my only living relative aside from my father,” Pol said.

“Mad Aunt Hattie,” Aaron said softly.

“How did you know?” Pol laughed. “That’s been a family pet name for her from as long as I can remember. God knows I tried to use Aunt Mattilda as her name when I was in school. It seemed so politically incorrect to use the Mad Aunt Hattie handle. So have you been researching my family tree?”

“I actually met her before I met you and only found out last week that you were related,” Aaron said. “It was actually because of her that I was out here on the night of the accident.”

“Oh my,” Pol sighed as she sank into the sofa. “She told you it was a space ship didn’t she?”

“Well, she hadn’t yet at the time,” Aaron said. He started to sit in the chair opposite Pol but she patted the sofa next to her and Aaron gladly moved to sit with her. Pol sat upright for a moment as she pulled the teabags out and placed them on a saucer then handed Aaron his tea. Then after a moment’s hesitation she settled back leaning against him and he put his arm around her.

“I’ve always loved Aunt Hattie,” Pol started while sipping her tea. “She was quite the smash on the Vaudeville circuit and actually was successful on Broadway and regional theaters. She’s got a great voice, even today. It’s so strange that a person who is in every way completely normal would have this one aberration floating around in her mind. Why would she think she was lovers with a man from another world who used an old church as a space ship?”

“Well, people hang on to strange things. Probably it was a result of telling the story once and being labeled as crazy, then needing to stick by the story in a desperate attempt to prove everyone wrong.” They sat in quiet contemplation for a moment. Aaron could not remember a time when he’d felt more contented, just having his arm around Pol.

“She was already old by the time I remember her,” Pol said. “What… maybe 60 years old or more? I thought she represented every adventure that the world had known. She was the very symbol of independent womanhood, successful in her own right and able to make her way without needing a man to fend for her. She was my ideal. I guess she still is in some way.”

“How did you find out about her story?” Aaron asked quietly.

“Oh she told me. Said she’d told my mother too young. She’d tell me only when I was old enough to understand,” Pol said. “I was fifteen. I already knew I was different than other kids in that I had absolutely no interest in the wild things kids were doing in my teens. I avoided drugs and those who had them. I didn’t date. I was working toward a scholarship at Vassar already when I was fifteen and I think Hattie thought I was ready. Of course, Mama had told me her version of the story when I was younger, but it was very different hearing her tell it herself. She is one of the best story-tellers I’ve ever heard. I would listen to her read the telephone book I loved her voice so much.”

“I’m on the receiving end of that every Friday afternoon,” Aaron said. “I met her while I was doing interviews at the Home for an oral history of what it was like to be a teen in rural Indiana in each of the decades of the twentieth century. Of course, I got a late start to be able to include anything before 1920, and it was shear luck that I ran into Hattie.”

“I was having tea with her one afternoon,” Pol continued. “She loved to have company for tea and I’d go up to her apartment in Fort Wayne whenever I could. Mama dropped me off there one afternoon when she went shopping and Hattie used the opportunity to tell me the story of Harper MacKenzie. What a story! She had been dribbling it out to me for months telling me a little bit at a time. She made it sound like she was a daring, do-as-she-will kid from the very beginning. Then that day she told me the part about my grandmother’s birth and that she was really my great-grandmother. Even knowing what to expect, I was completely sucked in by the story and fell for it hook, line, and sinker.”

“You believe you are her great-granddaughter?” Aaron asked surprised.

“No, that I’m an alien.” Aaron choked on his tea and turned to stare at her. “I’m kidding, silly,” she laughed. “Yes,” Pol continued, “I believe it is very possible that I might be her great-granddaughter.”

“You could find out,” Aaron said.

“How? Samuel Strongman is long-since dead,” Pol said. “He and his sons would be the only ones who could corroborate her story.”

“DNA testing,” Aaron answered. “It’s pretty well-established as a means of determining grandparentage as well as parentage. It would be worth a try if you’d really like to know.”

“I don’t know,” Pol answered. “It seems pointless to try to prove something that won’t have any effect on anyone. I don’t thing Aunt Hattie would really care anymore. What do you think.”

“I think you are an alien,” Aaron laughed. “Therefore you are afraid to have your DNA tested for fear of what it would reveal.”

“Or not reveal,” she said pensively. “What if it showed nothing out of the ordinary at all? I’d be so disappointed to find out I’m not an alien at all.” She laughed then, but oddly to Aaron it sounded forced.

“Let me see your feet,” Aaron said abruptly. Pol pulled away from him and scowled.

“Six toes does not an alien make,” Pol said. “Two out of every thousand children are born with extra digits, in some populations the percentage is higher. It doesn’t mean anything.” She reached down and pulled her socks off her feet and Aaron counted six toes on the left foot. The right had a normal five.

“Was your grandmother’s extra digit on her left foot?” Aaron asked.

“Yes,” Pol answered, “but mother had no extra digits at all. It’s just a fluke. Marilyn Monroe had six toes on one foot.”

“I always thought there was something other-worldly about her,” Aaron laughed.

“Now my feet are cold. Toss me that afghan would you?” Aaron handed her the afghan and she pulled it over her feet and draped it across the two of them. Aaron relaxed back into the corner of the sofa resting Pol’s head on his chest. Pol lifted her head enough to kiss him softly and tenderly. Aaron stroked her cheek as he looked into her eyes. “And the children of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful,” she quoted softly. “And, oh, so were their sons!” She kissed him again, this time with passion.

Chapter Eleven A: Poker

2005-11-22T10:15:00.000-08:00

After Aaron left Aunt Hattie it was later than usual and he headed directly for Jack’s house for the Friday night poker game. With luck some of the team would be reporting in with preliminary findings and Aaron didn’t want to miss anything. As it turned out he needn’t have worried because he was the first one there, but it gave him an opportunity to quickly brief Jack on his interview with Hattie.

“Well, I’d say you can’t trust anything that the old lady says, no matter how sweet she is,” Jack said as he sat shuffling the cards. “She may have convinced herself that it’s exactly how the events went, but face it, it is a pretty wild story. I grew up in the thirties and forties and I can’t imagine anyone making that trip while giving birth. It’s not like there were comfy upholstered seats and a nice safe car seat in that old Roadster.” Jack pulled out a picture and shoved it toward Aaron. “I found this on the internet,” he said. The picture showed a vehicle that looked almost like a pickup truck with an open backend and just one bench seat in the front. “Imagine a pregnant girl of sixteen or seventeen cranking that thing over to get it started, and driving on strange dirt roads, stopping to give birth, and then continuing the drive with a baby in one hand, the steering wheel in the other, and the gear shift in the other. I don’t think she could have done it.”

“People do super human things when they are desperate,” Aaron mused. “How did I get a chair from the front of the church sanctuary to the foyer, climb up on it and ring the bell when I was in so much pain I couldn’t see straight and was hallucinating?”

Jack’s response was cut off by other players arriving. Adele, even though she had no active part in the research, was the first to arrive saying she didn’t want to miss anything. Aaron was glad for her participation and analysis. They’d worked together for many years. Then Will arrived, followed soon after by Lonnie. They sat at the table and Lonnie blocked card play by tossing a folder in the middle of the table.

“This reeks,” he began. “I collected dead fish and water samples from as near to the harbor and steel mill as I could get without trespassing. Sent them down to West Lafayette and Eric got a friend in the Chem Lab to run tests. PCBs are way up and these fish are dying of mercury poisoning. That plant is dumping.”

“Jeez,” Aaron said looking at the reports. “This is an incredible level. Where’s EPA in all this?”

“They have to be colluding,” Lonnie said. “I checked the official reports and they are considerably lower. There’s no mention of fishkill at all and nothing in critical zone for PCBs. They do mark it as “Elevated” recommending caution in swimming or eating the fish. But these levels are poison. I mean, thank God we’re months away from swimming season. People going in on those beaches could be in serious health risk.”

“So it appears that the dredging is being done… why?” Aaron asked. “To cover up the fishkill?”

“That would be my guess,” Lonnie concluded.

“That puts the harbormaster in collusion as well,” Will said. “I’ve grabbed the financial records of both the harbor and the mill. The harbor handles traffic for a lot of industry along the lakeshore west, but only this mill on its east. It is the closest customer. It is also the harbor’s most profitable customer. They net more on shipments from Hoosier Steel than from any other customer. In that kind of situation it would be easy for the industry to put pressure on the harbormaster for anything they wanted.”

“But how do we handle releasing this kind of information without destroying the industry?” Aaron asked. “I don’t want to go in and shut down operations and put all those people out of work.”

“Hey, we’ve got to blow the whistle,” Lonnie said. “You can’t sit on this kind of information and endanger the lives of everyone who lives in the county. This stuff will ruin them a lot faster than having to learn a new occupation. Besides, if the books don’t show that the corporation itself is a fault, it will be easy to blame it all on a select few and limit the damages.”

“Why would they suddenly be leaking mercury?” Jack asked. “They don’t use mercury in refining steel, do they?”

Will was on top of the question at once. “A few years ago a coalition of industry along the lakeshore signed a voluntary agreement to eliminate mercury from their businesses. You don’t think of mercury being used in the manufacturing process, but it is used in a lot of the older instruments that keep the factory operating. Temperature gauges on the big furnaces, in the coke rendering plant, in lighting and a variety of other technical instruments. They all agreed that new technologies were available and they would upgrade their plants to eliminate mercury-based technologies. But disposing of the stuff is tricky. It has to be collected and stored securely, then shipped to a secure facility. It’s the storage until they get rid of it that would be the most likely place for leakage to occur.”

“How much mercury do they have to leak in order to get this kind of results?” Aaron asked.

“That’s the problem spot when it comes to clean-up,” Lonnie said. “It really doesn’t take much. A few pounds in a concentrated area would destroy a lot of wildlife. Mercury concentrates in bio forms which is what makes it such a problem.”

“This doesn’t add up,” Aaron said. “I want more details on how that Mercury got into the water before we go blowing a whistle. I’d like Susan’s report first. If we just go in throwing accusations around, we’ll create more problems than we cure.”

“You can wait if you want to,” Lonnie said, “but I won’t. “This is my county and I can’t be seen as someone who sat on hard evidence to protect the steel mills. From your Washington perspective, it might be a political tool, but this is our home.”

“Lonnie, can’t you give us a little time until we talk to the rest of the team?” Jack said. “You really don’t want to break this without knowing all the details.”

“The details are that there is Mercury in the water and it’s unsafe for people or fish. It’s putting the population at risk. I waited until tonight to tell you, but I’ve already released the story to the paper before they closed this evening. It will be on the front pages tomorrow,” Lonnie rose from the table. “I knew that once you saw this you’d try to turn it into a political football. This takes it out of that arena and the right authorities will have to take action.”

“Lonnie,” Jack started.

“There’s a copy of the story in the folder,” Lonnie said. “Don’t call me on questions you don’t want answers to.” He left the table and the room.

“Damn!” Aaron and Jack said almost at once. “What do we do now?”

“Calm down,” Adele said. “We still have to get Susan’s report. You don’t want to respond to a threat like this until you have all the details, no matter what it sounds like.”

“Always a level head,” Jack said. “If Susan’s not here tonight, there must be a reason. She hasn’t called in, so she must be working on something.”

“From a political perspective,” Will said, “this shouldn’t do your candidate any harm.” He tossed the article Lonnie released down on the table. “Lonnie’s not too subtle in his writing. He laid the credit at his own feet saying ‘Sources in the County Auditor’s office have discovered…’ Talk about political. He didn’t want your party to get credit for blowing the whistle. He may even be planning to suggest that your Congresswoman was trying to cover it up, now that I think about it. Whatever, the playing field is still level and you are in no worse condition than when you started.”

“Maybe,” Aaron said. “Lacking Susan’s input, I think I’ll head up to Michigan City on Monday and start doing a little poking around myself. I’d like to have a fresh view on the territory before I start writing my own version.”

“Let’s play poker,” Jack said. Everybody laughed and anted up.

Chapter Ten C: Making up with Aunt Hattie

2005-11-20T20:57:00.000-08:00

Hattie was not happy. She’d been stood up for her Friday afternoon date (even though Aaron had cancelled the appointment the previous week when he found that he would be in Washington for the week. But to Hattie, it meant that something, anything, else was more important than his weekly visit with her.

It was the spaceship thing, she thought. Now he would think she was mad, too. And she’d had such high hopes for him. Then nothing. She had sat in her lonely room the previous Friday with no one to talk to, as usual. She certainly couldn’t have a drink of sherry. One simply doesn’t drink alone. She saw his new green car pull up in the parking lot from her window, but resolved not to answer the door when he knocked. He could just be stood up as well as she could. But when the knock came on the door, she brightened inside as she automatically said to come in.

“Aunt Hattie, it is so good to see you again,” Aaron said coming straight to her chair and leaning to give her a peck on the cheek. She turned her head slightly and Aaron nearly stabbed himself on a hairpin. “How are you, Aunt Hattie,” he said as he sat in the chair on the opposite side of her little table.

“Fine, no thanks to you,” Hattie said a little petulantly.

“What did I do?” Aaron asked innocently.

“Well, just didn’t come last week, did you?” Hattie accused. “Treat a girl’s feelings lightly, it won’t get you anyplace.”

“Dear Aunt Hattie,” Aaron said soothingly. “I did not mean to treat you lightly, and I did say that I had to be out of town last week. You know, I must work or I wouldn’t be worth a girl having. Look here,” he said reaching into his briefcase. “I’ve brought you a new bottle of Sherry. A very nice Sandman Sherry. Shall we try a little of it?” Aunt Hattie was mollified as she examined the bottle that Aaron proffered. They poured a drink and toasted their friendship and Aaron’s new job.

“You must tell me,” Hattie began, “all about your new job.” Aaron knew this question would come up and was prepared with a brief description of what he was hired to do and why he thought it was important. In all likelihood Hattie was not current on politics. Of course, she would surprise him again. “They are all going to hell in a hand-basket,” Hattie declared assessing the current political situation. You simply can’t be an international bully and expect the world to love you. They might be afraid of you, but if they are they will all be watching for a moment when they can sneak up on you and beat you. I say throw them all out and start over.”

“Well, I think there are some good ones that we should be keeping,” Aaron said, “and if you knew some of them you’d soften that just a little. It is just so hard to work for change.”

“Oh yes, I know there must be some good in all of them, and some among them who are good. It is just so difficult to tell them apart these days.”

“As a matter of fact,” Aaron said as he turned on the recorder, “my new boss lives on your old homestead. Her name is Pol Stamos.”

“Polyhymnia?” Hattie asked in surprise. “I thought you lived in Fort Wayne. That’s not in her district.” Aaron was very surprised now. Who would have thought that Hattie would have any idea who her Congresswoman was and how the districts were divided? Most of the constituents of said district couldn’t tell you that.

“You don’t have to live in the district to work for the Representative,” Aaron said. “I’m surprised you know of Congresswoman Stamos,” he continued. “A lot of people don’t really know who their representative is.”

“Know of her? I ought to know of her. She’s my great-granddaughter.” Hattie tossed it off so matter-of-factly that it took a moment for it to sink in.

“Your great-granddaughter?” Aaron exclaimed. “Aunt Hattie, you told me you’d never been married.”

“I have never been married,” Hattie looked back at him a little startled. “That doesn’t mean I never had children,” she paused. “Child.”

“When did that happen?” Aaron asked. “It must have been quite an experience to be a single mother in the twenties and thirties.”

“Well now, didn’t I say that I was with Harper all that summer and that we spent weekends in Fort Wayne together?” Hattie asked back. “You don’t think we spent all that time swapping recipes do you?” It was such a surprise that Aaron was truly left speechless. It had simply never occurred to him that Hattie would have been such a wild child, even after all the stories she’d told him up to now. If Harper was the father, that would have made her all of seventeen when she had her child. How did her parents greet that news? he wondered. Recovering his composure he turned to the subject at hand.

“I’ve interviewed a couple teens this past year who were single parents and I thought it was something unique to, well not this generation, but at least the past couple. Can you tell me more about what it was like being a single teen mom in the twenties?” he asked.

“No I can’t,” Hattie said. “I was never allowed to be the mom. Here, pour me another glass of sherry, dearie. I’ll tell you all about it.” Aaron obliged and settled back to listen to another of Hattie’s amazing stories.

“I knew I was pregnant already when Harper went away. I had no idea how Mama and Papa would take the news, but I was sure it wouldn’t be good. One night shortly after the funeral I got in Harper’s roadster, managed to get it started, and very jerkily got it out of the yard before my eldest brother, Roy, came bursting out of the house and came running toward me. I’d been pretty calm about my plans for the past day, packing carefully all the pretty things I would need. I just hoped that I could make my way with the friends I’d made in Fort Wayne in Harper’s company.

“But when Roy came running out the door I lost all my composure and my foot slipped off the clutch. The car gave a leap forward and then died on the spot. Roy came running up beside me and pulled the door open. He suspected that some hooligan had come by to steal the car and was in for the shock of his life when he saw me in the seat with the bags piled in the back. It was too much for me and I burst into tears again when he asked me what I thought I was doing.

“But there was one thing about Roy that I will never forget. He truly cared for me and when I’d burst forth with the whole story sitting there on the dirt road in the driver’s seat of the Roadster, he was all sympathy. He checked my supplies and asked how much money I had. Well, it wasn’t much, but I figured I’d get a job in Fort Wayne when I got there. He had me wait while he ran into the house and grabbed a tin of money that he’d been saving since he was ten. By today’s standards, it wasn’t much. Just a little under five dollars. But to me it was a fortune and he was just giving it to me. Then he went around front and cranked the old thing back to life and slid into the seat next to me.

“He showed me how to work the clutch and the gas together and drove with me as I learned to drive. The final test was to make the big hill up toward the Twelve Oaks. I made it and stopped the car to go visit Harper’s grave, even though I knew he wasn’t really there. My brother told me that he’d visit me in a month to make sure everything was all right, then he turned back down the hill toward home and I got back into the car and drove into Fort Wayne.” There was a note of finality about it and Aaron wondered whether she ever saw her brother or family again. What a traumatic time it must have been for them all.

“Harper’s friends were good to me,” Hattie continued, “although I knew they didn’t approve of our relationship. Still, they provided a place for me to live and helped me to keep singing and earning a little money. They never took anything for their pains, but went about their rather strange business without paying much attention to me. Roy came to see me once a month when he went into Fort Wayne. He told me that first visit that Mama hadn’t been feeling well that month and was staying inside. She wouldn’t go to church or anyplace else. He reckoned she was blue over me leaving, but promised he wouldn’t tell why. I imagined that I’d go home when the baby was born and somehow that would make it all okay.

“When Roy told me Mama was failing, I was in my last month of pregnancy and simply couldn’t travel. Remember, an auto trip in the spring of 1924 from Fort Wayne to Uniondale was a little more arduous than today. The bouncing up and down in the Roadster would put me in danger of starting premature labor. But something else drove me into action.

“I was sitting in my bedroom late one night reading. My hosts were often out all night doing whatever it was they did. I gathered it had something to do with establishing a new arts program. They used strange words to describe it that were not in my normal vocabulary, as if they thought that they needed to obfuscate what they were saying when they were around me. That was one of the words I learned from them. Obfuscate. I wasn’t interested anyway, so they could have used any words they wanted. But then I overheard the conversation that night. They talked about how they should deal with the birth, suggesting that my baby should be sent away as soon as possible. In the post-partum phase, they would simply remove it and tell me it had died.

“I was terrified. I understood what they were then, and I resolved not to give them the opportunity to rob me of my baby,” Hattie took another sip of sherry as she paused to remember that night. “I made my second midnight escape in the Roadster. I was scarcely able to turn it over in my condition with my belly protruding and tears running down my cheeks. But desperation will drive you forward when determination fails and I drove away from the house where I’d been staying. The ride was rough and the results were as I feared. The first labor pains hit me when I was barely south of town. Before I reached Ossian I’d stopped the car and screamed in the seat of the Roadster until I’d delivered a baby girl. There was little I could do but keep going and it was near dawn when I pulled up in the farmhouse yard with a baby clutched to my breast.

“My brother’s ran out to get me and drag me into the house. But instead of putting me to bed, they pulled me into my mother’s room where she lay dying. I kissed her forehead and she opened her eyes. ‘My child, what have you been doing?’ she said. ‘You need food and a bath.’ I said, ‘Mama, you’re a grandmother now. You need to stay around so you can help me raise her.’ Well, Mama looked at her and reached out to touch her little fingers. ‘We’ll name her Claire, after my mother’s sister,’ Mama said. ‘It was such a hard delivery, though. I don’t think I can stay. Papa will have to take care of her.’ And then, while she was still touching my little one’s hand, she slipped away.

“Life was so unfair. I’d lost my love and my mother, just when I should be feeling the joy of parenthood myself. Papa called the boys in to say goodbye to Mama and then said the strangest thing. ‘Boys, your Mama is gone, but she brought a new little sister into the world just before she left. Let’s help Mattie get her cleaned up and celebrate our new life as we mourn our loss.’ He gently lifted me up from where I was kneeling and took my little girl from me. He led us into the kitchen and got water heated. Daniel brought milk and warmed it in the water and gave my little girl her first taste of this world.” Tears were in Hattie’s eyes as she related the last of this story, and Aaron dabbed at his own eyes with a handkerchief. He reached to turn off the recorder, but Hattie waved his hand away.

“I’m not finished,” she said. “We buried Mama up on the hill and those who came to say good-bye were told that she’d died in childbirth. She hadn’t been out of the house since I was last home so no one but the doctor had seen either her or me for seven months. They didn’t know that I had been pregnant and that my mother hadn’t and Doc Robinson promised that he’d never tell. After the funeral, Papa told me that I’d better get back to my life. My baby was safe and he would make sure she knew all about her Aunt Mattie. I should take myself back to the city and sing.

“I was heart-broken, but it was plain to see that Papa had made up his mind. He had no intentions of me staying around to possibly cast doubt on his story that Mama had died in childbirth or that I was anything less than a pure and innocent girl who was making a big success as a singer in the city. He made sure that my gas tank was filled and that I had some additional amount of money. He suggested that I go back to Fort Wayne, but I couldn’t risk Harper’s friends finding out about where my baby was. So I headed for Chicago instead. I became a success on the Vaudeville circuit as a singer and moved straight to Broadway to act in musicals. Oh, I was never a big name, though I had my leading lady credits, but I was successful.” Hattie seemed to have made an end to her story.

“Did you every see your daughter again?” Aaron asked.

“Oh heavens yes,” Hattie said. “I came home for holiday’s and when Papa died I was there with him. That is when the madness started. Are we going to talk about that today?”

Aaron looked at his watch. “It’s time for tea,” he said. “Do you mind talking while we have tea?”

“Oh certainly dearie,” Hattie said. “I’m so glad you can stay for tea.” As if on cue, there was a knock on the door and Amanda Frederiks came in with the tea service. She set the table for two and greeted Aaron warmly. When she had gone, Hattie initiated the continuation.

“Well to understand the rest of the story, you have to understand that Roy and Daniel, my brothers, were very different people. Roy was older, compassionate, and cared for me deeply. Daniel was always a little stand-offish and judgmental about things. If you didn’t live up to his standards he had no use for you, and I’m afraid I fell considerably short. It wouldn’t have been much of a problem except that when Papa died Claire was only fourteen. Roy was set to step in taking care of her but with the farm and all he was taxed to care for himself. Daniel got married and assumed that he’d take over the farm, but the will was very clear giving Roy clear title and giving Daniel a sizable sum that got him out of the depression very nicely. So, Daniel and his wife took Claire in. I’m afraid that he wasn’t kind to her, and she followed closely in my footsteps without even knowing that I was her mother. She married at 17 and had a child the next year. A couple years later, we found ourselves embroiled in World War II and her husband was shipped off to England. Daniel, feeling somewhat abandoned by Claire joined up and went the other way to fight in the Pacific. Roy took Claire and her baby, Alison in at the farm. I went off to join the USO and entertain troops. To make a long story short, I was the only one who returned.

“Neither Roy nor I had ever broached Claire’s true birth story with her. She believed herself fully our sister. I simply had never felt comfortable telling her and Roy believed he was acting in all our best interest. But when Allison was about eight years old and the world was at peace again, I decided to return home and confront them with the true story. The war did something to all of us. It changed us somehow. We all clung more firmly to our truths than ever before. They knew I’d changed when I got back. It was time to set the record straight.

“Claire and Allison both loved me as their adventurous sister and aunt who had made her way in the world. Something both of them envied, but things had never been quite the same between Claire and me since Papa died. So one night when Roy had gone out I called the girls together at bedtime and told them my story. The response I got was not what I expected. They laughed. I was shocked, I have to say. I sat there with my mouth open.

“Claire looked at her daughter and said ‘Aunt Mattie’s gone crazy!’ It was as if they had rehearsed this all along, waiting for me to tell my story. Allison said, ‘Aunt Mattie’s mad as a hatter!’ Then Claire said, ‘Mad Aunt Mattie.’ And Allison started over and over chanting Mad-Aunt-Mattie-Mad-As-A-Hatter until she’d messed up the words and they came out Mad-Aunt-Hattie-Had-As-A-Matter. And that is where they stuck. Mad Aunt Hattie. Claire sent Allison off to bed and looked at me. I was still in shock and near tears. Then she told me that Daniel had told her all about my delusions of being her mother after Mama died and that that was why Papa sent me away. He told her that you had to be mad to be in theater and I was a capital case. Then she asked why I didn’t include the part about us being aliens. She said that would have made it all the funnier.

“Well, I have to say I lost it then. I pulled myself together and rose. Then I said haughtily, ‘Look at your feet, dearie, then laugh about being an alien.’ That silenced her. I left the next day, but in Allison’s mind, and I am afraid in dear Polyhymnia’s mind, I am still Mad Aunt Hattie.” Aunt Hattie stopped abruptly and in a moment began a kind of sing-song chant very quietly. “Mad Aunt Hattie Had As A Matter,” over and over again. Aaron could not leave her like this and there were things he needed to know.

“Aunt Hattie,” he spoke quietly, but she responded and smiled at him. “Do you ever see your great-granddaughter now?”

“Oh, dearie,” she said, “Polly is a sweet girl and has always been kind to me. She knows that there is some truth to what I say even though it was truly an unkind cut to make at Claire. Having six toes on one foot doesn’t make you an alien dearie. Polly comes by at least once a month to see me. You see, we are the only ones left in the family, no matter how you cut it. She lives out there in the big house by herself just so she can be near the church. When I die, she’ll bury me up on that hill, and someday she’ll join the others. You see, dearie, she knows. She’s one of them.”

Chapter Ten B: Lunch with Janice

2005-11-18T16:14:00.000-08:00

Aaron was pretty nervous about Saturday. What he hadn’t told Pol was that he did have a lunch date with Janice Linefelter. And that was confusing the hell out of him. He’d had a get-together of some sort with Janice every week since he bought the car. They’d met for coffee, had dinner, had lunch. Always food, nothing else. They always parted after the meal, usually with a chaste kiss on the cheek. At first, Aaron knew he was in no condition for anything more than that. In fact, he still hurt if there were any sudden moves. But he was puzzled about where Janice expected this to go. They talked—a lot. She talked about her childhood, the time she was with her mother, the life of a researcher, Aaron’s few years of marriage. They’d become very good friends. But, strange as it seemed to Aaron, he didn’t really feel sexually attracted to her. How was he going to handle this.

Today they were to meet back at Don Hall’s Steak House. He would have to order of the senior’s menu just to rub in how big their age difference was. Funny how it didn’t seem to make a difference to him when he was with Pol. She was only a couple years older. Well, he was going to have to face the facts and talk to her about their relationship. He wasn’t going to be accused of leading someone on.

They sat and ordered and began to chat about small things. She was adapting well to the life of an auto dealer. She still couldn’t believe she was doing this, but she was actually beginning to enjoy learning about and selling cars. Mike said it was in her blood and that he didn’t think he’d like selling cars at first either. It just sort of happened.

Finally Aaron hemmed a bit and broached the subject.

“Janice, we really need to talk about something,” he started.

“Wait!” she exclaimed. “Please don’t say another word. I have to ask you something and I don’t think I’ll be able to if you go on right now.”

Aaron cringed slightly, but nodded his agreement. If she wanted to start it, it was okay with him. This was going to be harder than he hoped.

“You know Mike better than I do,” Janice started. Aaron started to protest that, but Janice waved him down. “Longer then, at least. Aaron, what’s he going to think about me being involved, you know, with another person?”

“It depends,” Aaron said cautiously. This was a different approach than he had thought about. What would Mike think about he and Janice being involved. He wouldn’t be happy. Aaron knew that Mike intended to make Janice his heir. He’d immediately be suspicious that Aaron was trying to get a bigger cut of the money. Perhaps he could use this to explain why he wasn’t interested in going any further with their relationship. “I don’t suppose he would be happy about someone who knows how you’re related to him becoming seriously interested in you all of a sudden. He’d probably suspect that they thought they could somehow take advantage of you to get in better with him. No, I don’t think he’d be happy about that at all.”

“But I haven’t told anybody about that,” Janice said. “Besides, that’s not the real issue.”

“What’s the real issue then, Janice?” Aaron asked. He was a little confused. She didn’t have to tell him she was Mike’s daughter; he already knew.

“The real issue is that it’s another woman,” Janice said softly, as if she didn’t really want him to hear. Aaron was flat-out shocked. His mouth must have opened and closed a couple times without any words coming out as he stared at her. She looked away from him. “I thought you’d be able to understand,” she said softly. “I didn’t think you’d judge me based on my sexual preference.” She started to get up from the table.

“Janice, wait,” Aaron found his voice and tugged her back to her seat by the sleeve. “That’s not it at all. I thought you were talking about me. It was just such a shock to realize that I’ve read this all wrong…”

“You?” she exclaimed. “Oh, Aaron, I never intended to lead you on. I just don’t know many people here and you’ve been so helpful. I just needed a friend. Oh God! I don’t need a man!” Aaron burst out laughing so abruptly that it caught Janice by surprise. It wasn’t more than a moment before she had joined his laughter with tears streaming down her cheeks.

“I was afraid I had inadvertently led you on!” Aaron said. “I was enjoying your company, but I wasn’t feeling romantic about you. I was so afraid you would be mad at me for not returning your feelings.”

“You dope!” Janice said. “Did I ever do anything to lead you to believe that I was interested in you in any way but as a friend? Couldn’t you tell I’m gay?”

“Chalk it up to old age and senility,” Aaron laughed. “If I had paid attention I’d probably have figured it out. I feel like such an idiot! I came here today to try to tell you that I couldn’t be more than a friend to you. In fact, I’ve started to see someone to whom I’m very attracted and I was afraid you’d be so hurt that you’d never speak to me again.”

“You’re kidding! I’m thrilled. Is she cute?” Janice asked bluntly.

“Yes, but you’ve already found someone. Tell me about her,” Aaron said.

“She was a customer two weeks ago. She came in to the showroom and the hounds descended on her. I could tell she was uncomfortable with all the guys hanging around trying to tell her about the new line-up. I was standing on the other side of the showroom and I had my arms crossed like this leaning against an Outback. I was pretty disgusted with them. They all want to hang around an attractive woman when one comes in the showroom, but they won’t talk to her at all if her husband comes in with her. They only talk to him. I was shaking my head thinking they were a bunch of jerks. Then all of a sudden this woman pushes her way through the pack and walks straight up to me and says this is the one that interests me. Could you tell me about it?” Janice paused remembering the detail of her first meeting with Katherine. “We went for a drive and started talking. I didn’t return the car until it was almost closing time. Mike was about to read me the riot act, but Katherine was signing the papers for the car. I left work a few minutes after she left and met her at the Kracker Barrel for dinner.

“Aaron,” Janice looked at him pleadingly, “we didn’t have to ask. We both knew we were right for each other from the first time we met. I know it’s sudden, but she is so wonderful. I have to tell Mike sometime because sometime I’m going to have to tell Katherine he’s my father. I’ve got to know how to approach it.”

“Whoa!” Aaron started. “How long have you known this Katherine?”

“Two weeks,” Janice moaned.

“Okay,” Aaron said. “Much as I hate to say it, in the long run it will make it easier if we break this into two issues instead of one. You are worried about whether Mike will accept your new lover, but you are also worried about whether he will accept you as a lesbian. Is that correct?”

“Yes. Damn it, that shouldn’t even be an issue,” Janice declared.

“You are right,” Aaron said, “it shouldn’t. But this is Indiana and the south starts at the Lincoln Highway half a mile from here. Now that taken into consideration, I think Mike is going to be okay with the sexuality issue. And I know how to approach it. He’s got a good friend who’s gay and she’s the one who introduced him to me. We’ll get her to help broach the subject with him. I just don’t think there’s going to be a problem there. Mike isn’t waiting for grandchildren or anything like that. And as far as I can tell, he’s pretty tolerant of other people just because he feels like he owes it to the world—and to you if I read him right.”

“I’m so glad to hear that,” Janice said. “After all is said and done, Mike and I are still basically employer and employee. But I do like him and I have this absurd longing to have his approval. I was never able to tell Mama. Her life was so miserable that I felt that I couldn’t add anything to her burdens. I never came out, but I never felt that I was in either. It just never came up.”

“Don’t ask, don’t tell,” Aaron said. “No matter what it is, it is a part of you. I think that Mike would want to know about that just as he wanted to know about how your mom lived and died.”

“What about Katherine?” Janice asked.

“That I think we should get Adele’s opinion on. Do it all at once or stage it one thing at a time. Think you can go with that?”

“When can we call this Adele?” Janice asked.

Chapter Ten A: Money on the Table

2005-11-18T16:06:00.000-08:00

Aaron took a cab directly from the airport to Jack’s house. He was still wearing his Washington suit and a club tie. Well, he wouldn’t be going to Washington all that much, he decided, so it wasn’t that bad to have to wear them now. He pecked Theresa on the cheek, but grabbed the sandwich she offered him and his stack of black chips and went directly to Jack’s poker room. He was relieved to see Will and Susan there as well as Adele and two others that Jack had called in. Aaron couldn’t remember their names exactly, but he knew that Jack would have chosen them carefully for this game.

“Well, stand up and salute,” Jack muttered when he saw Aaron in his power-suit. “You look like a rich mark in a shark’s lair.”

“All things taken into consideration,” Aaron said, “that’s what I feel like. Now you guys all be kind to me. I don’t really know much about playing this game.” Everyone laughed at his demeanor.

“You can’t sucker me with that innocent attitude,” Will scoffed. “I hear you are employed in Washington, D.C. That means it’s our money that’s not safe.”

“Aaron, do you remember Eric Woolrich, class of ’81?” Jack said. “And Lonnie Williams, class of ’89 you may not have met.”

“Eric, Lonnie, good to meet you. It’s good to see you again, Will, Susan,” Aaron shook hands all around.

“You too, Aaron,” Susan said. “It’s been too long.”

“Let’s play poker,” Jack announced. “Seven Card stud, dollar ante.” He started dealing the cards. “Tell us what your game is, Aaron.” While they played over the next hour and a half, Aaron explained his project and his theory. Aaron thought of Will in a strictly professional forum as an attorney practicing in South Bend. That should give him an adequate jumping point to be able to investigate around Portage. Susan, on the other hand, was a private investigator who could uncover just about anything. Her typical forte was tracking lost objects, including embezzled cash and stolen property. Aaron discovered that Eric had joined the faculty at Purdue as a history professor in West Lafayette, and Lonnie worked in the County Auditor’s office in Portage County. That was a real coup for the team that Aaron wanted assembled.

“I don’t believe that the dredgers are in that harbor because of any of the reasons that the harbormaster suggested. The company’s record suggests that they really don’t care if they keep their longshoremen busy during the winter months. Most move off to other, warmer ports in the winter months and migrate back to Indiana when the Seaway opens. I’d guess he actually had to call someone back from a warm-weather stint to run that dredger. Second, there’s no Kudzu in that harbor. Don’t ask me how I know this, but understand that I’ve investigated that and it just isn’t there.”

“Why do you think they’re dredging?” Will asked. “Something must have motivated them to start it up when they’d agreed not to. You wouldn’t think that even if they don’t like the Congresswoman they would do something just to spite her.”

“Exactly,” Aaron said. “I think they are being pressured to dredge by someone who holds more sway over them than the Congresswoman. After all, she isn’t actually in their district. My best guess is that it’s the steel or gas industry. As to why, I think it has to do with the fish kill. I was out on the beach early this week and there is an extraordinary number of dead fish washed up. It didn’t look to me like they’d been chopped up as they would have with the dredger. Also, no carrion birds are touching them. That strikes me as really odd.”

“What could be causing it then?” Susan asked.

“I think there is something toxic in the water and they are trying to cover it up as long as possible,” Aaron stated flatly.

“There’s a lot of implications there,” she rejoined. “We’ve got inspectors that should be monitoring the water there. How are they getting away with no reports on the conditions?”

“That’s exactly what I’d like to know,” Aaron continued. “Here’s the lay of the land and what I want out of this investigation. First, what is in the water that’s being covered up, and who’s paying for it? Second, how are they doing it without having government inspectors up the wazoo? Third, what kind of dangers does this pose for the workers at the harbor and at any of the plants and refineries in the area, even for the population around the area? Finally, I want a solution to the problem that will be an economic and health benefit for the workers of Portage County and the rest of the Lakeshore. I don’t want an industry-killer.”

“You’re not really asking much for the money, are you?” Lonnie asked.

“Consider it a down-payment,” Aaron said. “I want these questions answered—not because they are beneficial to my candidate, but because somebody is killing fish, the lakeshore, and maybe people. This isn’t even in the Congresswoman’s district, so it’s not really going to affect her election one way or another other than to show her as a crusader for the common citizen.”

“That in itself should help her campaign,” Lonnie continued back. “I’m not affiliated with her party, and I’d hate to be seen as aiding the enemy. But what you say is right. That portion of the Lakeshore is in my County and I sure won’t give you the first part of the answers without the last part. That will help us all, no matter what party we’re affiliated with.”

“I appreciate your sentiments, Lonnie,” Aaron answered. “I hope we can show this as a cross-party coalition that is fighting for the best interests of people and the environment. I don’t want to come off as being anti-anything.”

“Questions, anybody?” Jack broke in. Everyone at the table shook their heads. “Let’s play poker,” Jack continued. “Seven card stud, Black Bottom Split. The price of poker just went up. Table stakes.” Everyone anted and all but Jack and Aaron folded after the first cards were dealt. At the end of the hand fifty black chips from each sat in the middle of the table and Aaron folded. The contract was sealed.

Chapter Nine C: Dinner with the Boss

2005-11-17T15:56:00.000-08:00

Aaron pulled up in front of the hotel/conference center complex with chuckle. It was a fulcrum point in the change of American politics and the intervention of the free press. That was how Dr. Jack Diggory had described it in his American Government class at Indiana University in 1971. American politics would never be the same, he said, now that the press has stepped up as the watchdog of the government. The question, he said, was who would safeguard the people from the press?

The Watergate itself was not Aaron’s goal. He was headed to the posh 600 Restaurant to meet with Pol. She had been unavailable after his first day in Washington and set up this late night dinner on Thursday. Well, it was late for Aaron, or any mid-westerner used to sitting down to eat at six. East coast time runs differently and dinner at eight was far more common. Pol told him in her message that dinner would also last for at least two hours at this restaurant, so they should have plenty of time to discuss his first week at work. Two hours, just to eat! This would be the longest period they’d spent together since the plane trip out from Indianapolis. It seemed like a month ago instead of two days.

Aaron found the staff to be very friendly and open after his initial interview with Nina. He half expected everyone to share her hostility, but found that they were a highly efficient crew that managed the Congresswoman’s office with grace and aplomb. He’d spent a lot of time with Jason, the legislative aide, and with Al Sisson who was officially Pol’s researcher. He had piles of reports on his desk and seemed to know the status of everything that was happening on The Hill. If Aaron had a question about what percent of steel industry revenues were generated from Indiana, Al knew the answer. If the question was “who was the cute aide to the Representative from California?” he knew that answer as well.

Wednesday night the staff left the office to have a beer at a local brewpub and welcome Aaron to the team, even though he was not part of the legislative staff. Aaron was surprised that Nina had joined them. They carefully avoided any direct contact with each other, but it was obvious that she was respected if not loved by her staff. What an enigma. Aaron put it on his list of questions to ask Pol. Nina left early with a reminder that she didn’t want any hangovers in the office in the morning. Taking the warning to heart, all but Al left by nine o’clock. He and Aaron shared one more beer and then walked from the pub to Aaron’s hotel, enjoying the crisp, but not frigid air. It wouldn’t be long before things started blooming in DC and Aaron thought of the several inches of snow still on the ground in northern Indiana.

“Aaron,” Al said as they walked along, “mind if I ask you a couple questions that are way off the record?”

“Shoot,” Aaron replied.

“You have to know that there isn’t any other campaign staff, don’t you?” Al asked.

“I know that I’m the first she’s hired,” Aaron responded.

“You’re the first she’s ever hired,” Al added. Aaron wasn’t aware of that. “All her other campaigns have been run by volunteers and the office staff. Some of us were with her on previous campaigns and can’t help wondering what hiring a campaign staff is going to mean to us.”

“Well,” Aaron considered, “I don’t know what effect it’s going to have. I think she is just concerned that someone be on-site in Indiana full-time so that we don’t miss anything. I didn’t really ask about her hiring plans for the rest of the campaign. Who manages it for her?”

“Nina,” Al responded. “She manages everything. It surprised us all that she wasn’t the one to hire you.”

“Ah. That explains a lot.”

“To get right to the point,” Al said, “there’s been a lot of rumor about the Congresswoman running for the Senate, all of it denied, but having you hired as a press relations person makes everybody think that we must be headed for a big campaign that will be state-wide, at least. I have to admit, I can’t think of any other reason that she would make a hire at this time. Bluntly, are we getting ready for a Senate race?”

“Understand Al,” said Aaron facing him, “that I’m not controlling what the Congresswoman does. But in asking me to do this job she asked me to specifically run press relations for her re-election. I’m telling you straight-forward that to my knowledge there is no Senate race this year.”

“In spite of my internal desires to say you’re lying,” Al laughed, “somehow I think I have to believe you. I’ve got a raft of info that you are going to be needing. I’ll start briefing you tomorrow if you can get in at 6:00 we can have a lot of it done before staff meeting.”

“That’s fine,” Aaron said and they parted.

Now as Aaron stood in front of the Watergate he had to wonder if his understanding of what Pol wanted was accurate. He felt that she wanted to run for the Senate, but was being held back. It was not unheard of to use the House of Representatives as a stepping stone to the Governorship, but it wasn’t all that common either. If she faced a draft nomination to the Senate, would she accept? That would have to be an unprecedented activity since Senators ran in binding primary elections and weren’t subject to the nomination of a convention. No, she had to be targeting the Governorship. His understanding had to be correct.

Before he walked into the restaurant, he made one last call on his cell phone. Jack answered.

“Anything lined up for tomorrow night?” Aaron asked without preamble.

“Friendly game of poker,” Jack responded.

“I’d like to play with Will Anderson and Susan Ganshorn if you can get them in,” Aaron said casually.

“Hmmm,” Jack paused. “They usually only want to play when there is substantial money on the table.”

“There’s money on the table,” Aaron said. “Let’s say to the tune of 50k.”

“Client anybody we know?” Jack answered curious.

“Me,” Aaron said. “See you tomorrow.” He hung up before Jack had managed to ask more questions. Sometimes it was good to have your own research organization to call on, even if you were spending your own cut of earlier hard-earned profits. He glanced up as he finished the call and saw Pol sitting with a portly man in a three-piece suit at a table near the windows. Before closing his phone he quickly snapped a picture. He recognized this guy.

“Excuse me, sir,” the maitre’d came up to him. “The restaurant is a cell phone free zone. If you’d like to make a call, please step into the lobby.”

“Just turning it to stun,” Aaron smiled. “I’m to meet Representative Stamos for dinner.”

“Name?”

“Aaron Case.”

“Right this way, Mr. Case.”

Pol and Alex both stood as Aaron approached the table.

“Aaron, welcome,” Pol said warmly, taking his hand. “I’d like you to meet my Uncle Alex Jasper. Alex, this is Aaron Case, my new Campaign Press Manager.”

“I’ve heard so much about you, Mr. Case,” Alex said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“The pleasure is mine,” Aaron returned. “I know I’ve seen you before.”

“Oh, I’m a meddlesome old fool,” Alex said, “so I try to keep tabs on what my niece is up to. No doubt you’ve seen me around sometime. I trust that you will be able to meet all her expectations,” he continued. “They are quite high.”

“Well, I assure you I will do my best,” Aaron smiled. “She will certainly have it.”

“There was never a doubt about that, Aaron,” Pol laughed. “Come sit down. Uncle Alex just joined me for a drink and was about to leave.”

“I’m not displacing you, I hope,” Aaron said turning to Alex.

“I certainly hope not,” Alex responded enigmatically. “See you soon, Pol. Mr. Case.” The older gentleman left quickly, Aaron staring after him as they were seated. A waiter placed a clean place setting before Aaron.

“Well, tell me all about your first week on my staff,” Pol said energetically.

“It’s been an interesting three days, Congresswoman,” Aaron began.

“Aaron, please,” she interrupted, “when we are alone use my first name. I know you know the difference between when that would be appropriate and when not.”

“Thank you, Pol,” Aaron responded warmly. “When one is in Washington one is inundated with formalities and it’s not always easy to switch gears. Believe me, I don’t want to ever appear too familiar, so correct me or warn me when it’s appropriate.”

“I agree. I did ask you a business question,” Pol said. “I get confused myself sometimes. But I hope that much more than being my press manager you will be my friend.”

“If one ever interferes with the other,” Aaron said, “I’m afraid you will lose a press manager.”

“Fair enough,” Pol said. “So informally and off the record, how were your first two days with my staff.”

“Very productive. They put the lie to all tales of Washington bureaucracy. I can only hope the rest of our government runs as smoothly.”

“It doesn’t, unfortunately,” Pol sighed. “Go on.”

“Well, everyone seems to accept more responsibility than one would expect their jobs specifically require. There aren’t any here that are looking for new jobs. Their loyalty is incredible. They are ready to put everything they’ve got in their non-office hours into your campaign for re-election.”

“Have they accepted that I’m not running for Senator?” Pol asked.

“Tentatively. They can’t imagine why you would hire a press manager when you’ve done all other campaigns without a paid staff unless you were running for something bigger. Frankly, when I found that out, I had to wonder myself,” Aaron paused to give Pol a chance to step in with an answer to his question without being more explicit.

She calmly failed to take the bait. Instead she asked, “And are they satisfied with the answers you’ve given. Are they disappointed I’m not running for Senate?” Now Aaron paused to think back over his conversations with the staff. Were they disappointed?

“I’d have to say that in most cases there has been a tentative sigh of relief. I don’t think anyone there underestimates the kind of risk that would be involved in giving up this office to challenge a highly entrenched incumbent for the Senate. They would follow you to hell and back, but they are happy you are only going half way.” The both laughed. There was a little relief even in Pol’s sigh of acceptance. Aaron almost hated to burst the bubble. “Of course, there is some holdout regarding your political future. I think some people have other plans for your career.”

“Nina,” Pol answered matter-of-factly. “Between liberalism, feminism, and personal loyalty, she would have me crowned queen tomorrow and do away with all the political nonsense.” Pol smiled and shook her head as though at a private joke. They were interrupted by the arrival of their salads and the ritual grinding of pepper. Aaron tried to remember if he ever peppered a salad at home or if that was strictly something that was reserved for fancy restaurants. But the distraction was not enough to divert his line of questioning.

“I have to ask, Pol,” Aaron said after a bite or two of salad. “Why Nina? Don’t get me wrong. It’s easy to see that she runs the most efficient and motivated staff in congress, but her style and her sense of command, I’d have to say that even what I can tell of her values, seem so contrary to everything else I know about you… or perhaps that I’ve assumed about you.”

“Yes,” Pol said thoughtfully, “I assumed we would get to that question pretty soon. I wanted to warn you in advance, but it wouldn’t have been fair.”

“Fair to whom?” Aaron asked.

“Fair to Nina, and to you,” Pol said. “I had to give you the chance to step up to the situation on your own, and for her to test herself against you without my interference. Especially the latter. I really didn’t have any question about how you’d handle the situation, and I’m glad to say that I understand you did not disappoint me in that area. Just the right mix of challenge and acquiesce, though I do wish that it had not come to the point of promising to resign if you can’t deliver steel to the campaign by Primary time. I’m afraid that it might not be that easy.” Aaron was surprised to find out that Pol even knew about that. As far as he was concerned only he and Nina knew the substance of that conversation, and he hadn’t told anyone. He couldn’t imagine Nina broaching the subject with Pol.

“Nina is an extraordinary individual, Aaron. But she’s been jaded in her opinion of how things work in this world. She believes that the answer to the world’s ills, the nature of which we are in complete agreement, is to gain absolute power and dictate the answers.” Pol paused to finish her salad. Aaron interjected an aside.

“It sounds very Machiavellian.”

“Machiavelli would have been overshadowed by Nina had they been in the same court.”

“But that is so unlike you,” Aaron protested.

“Yes, but it is very like Uncle Alex,” Pol continued. “He hand-picked my staff from the roster and pulled a few strings to make sure they were assigned to me before last year’s election.”

“He seems to be pretty influential,” Aaron surmised. “Do I owe my position to him as well?”

“No. In fact he opposed it adamantly,” Pol said. “I over-ruled him. And I would consider over-ruling him on the issue of Nina except that he is right about her. She is exactly where she should be. I will not repay such loyalty as she has to me with anything less than my support for her. That is not to say that I agree with all her methods, nor that I will tolerate outright unethical behavior on her part. But continue questioning the staff. I think you will find that they have as deep an unswerving loyalty to Nina as to me, if perhaps she does not inspire their love as well.”

“It still doesn’t add up,” Aaron said. “I can appreciate that you were saddled with someone that you are not happy with, though I’m not sure why Mr. Jasper should hold that deep a sway with you. I won’t ask, because right now I don’t really want to know the answer to that question. There is something else about Ms. Patterson that binds her to you, I think.”

“I expected you to perceive as much,” Pol said. “It is not, as you might suspect, anything like your unique circumstances when we met,” she smiled, “nor is she a long-lost family relative, nor a person to whom I owe a great debt. The reason Uncle Alex chose her is because we all need to be in touch with ourselves.” She paused again as the entrée was served. Aaron had chosen the Maryland Crab Cakes while Pol went with the somewhat more standard Chicken Watergate. Aaron wasn’t sure they would get back to the topic as they commented on the exquisite preparation of the food. But Pol returned to the subject without his prompting.

“So why?” Pol mused. “Nina reminds me of myself at her age, filled with fervor and zeal for a just cause.”

“You are still filled with fervor and zeal,” Aaron chuckled. “I’ve witnessed it.”

“Yes. Well…” Pol actually blushed a bit. “Nina would never allow that to have occurred, as you have probably been well-informed. She has an innate understanding of politics and how to play political games. She would never have allowed a direct confrontation to occur unless she knew that the outcome would improve my electoral prospects. It is not likely that, for all your endeavors in the next two months may accomplish, that this even will help me politically.”

“Ms. Patterson made it very clear that I was responsible for what happened at Burns Ditch,” Aaron said. “And I wouldn’t have taken the challenge if I didn’t feel somewhat responsible.”

“Yes, well, I still wish it hadn’t come down to such high stakes,” Pol said, “but I really can’t interfere in what is between you two.”

“I wouldn’t have taken the challenge if I didn’t believe I could win it,” Aaron said.

“Really?” Pol looked genuinely surprised. “Aaron, do you think you can actually win the steel industry vote?”

“If not the official industry, then the laborers in that industry. That is what will really count in the end. The industry lobby won’t be able to pour too many funds into your opponent’s campaign if the labor unions come out in your favor. That’s all I can really say at the moment. What we have to do is put a face on the worker and put it face to face with the face of the industry.”

“You give me new hope, Aaron.”

“I wouldn’t attempt this if you didn’t give me hope, Congresswoman,” Aaron replied.

“Aaron, I said…” Pol began.

“It was very deliberate,” Aaron interrupted. “It’s not just the hope that your friendship gives me, but that your office, your goals, and representation of the people give me. If we were not friends, you would still have that.” Pol and Aaron locked eyes for a long moment. Her eyes were moist, not quite tearful.

“I sincerely hope that you never need to make that choice, Aaron,” Pol said. “In a very short period of time you and your opinions have come to mean a great deal to me.” She paused again as they simply held each other’s eyes. “That is why I have to finish telling you about Nina. She is in many ways my alter-ego. She is the one who would make me into more than I am. I want to embrace her image of me, but I am very afraid of it. By keeping her close by, I am constantly reminded to weigh every action between the political animal that Nina represents in me, and the reasons that I have for being here. In private, she is free to argue every point of my platform and liaisons with me. I guess you could say she represents everything I believe in for all the wrong reasons. I will win her over eventually and she will have the right reasons. Until then, she will intervene when I’m making bad political choices and remind me every step of the way that I have to work in a political system, not one where everyone instinctively responds to what is good and right.”

They waited while the waiter cleared their dishes and ordered dessert and coffee. It was clearer to Aaron now, but still left many questions. Could someone like that be trusted to give good advice to the candidate? Perhaps, as Sir Thomas More said to the King’s counselors, “We must tell the king what he should do, not what he can do.” That politically savvy view could carry a candidate a long way as long as the Machiavellian in her was kept in check. Well, he’d have to deliver on his part as well.

When they left the restaurant they decided to walk down to the Mall through the twisting pedestrian ways that led them across the I-66 interchange and down Rock Creek Parkway to the Lincoln Memorial. As they passed Kennedy Center Pol was suddenly struck by an idea.

“Why don’t you stay in town the weekend, Aaron?” she asked suddenly. “The symphony is playing Saturday night and I’m sure I could get tickets.” The smile she turned on him was breath-taking. Aaron was at a loss for words. Two aspects of this relationship were warring within him.

“I don’t think… I mean,” he stammered. “I have a commitment tomorrow evening that is kind of important,” he finally managed.

“Oh.” Pol said. “Of course. I’m sorry, Aaron. I didn’t even stop to consider that you might not be unattached. Please don’t assume that I’m asking or requiring anything above your job and your friendship,” Pol hurried on.

“It’s not that,” Aaron said quickly. “Pol, I am open to more than friendship, but didn’t think it was appropriate. It’s just that I really have an appointment with Jack tomorrow night that is pretty important. I still have some research projects that he’s helping me wrap up for book deadlines and all.”

“I wasn’t suggesting…” Pol began then stopped. “Oh damn! Of course I was. This is so ridiculous. A Congresswoman in her forties should not be stumbling around asking a man for a date. It just isn’t fair.” They both burst out in laughter. “I just enjoyed our time together this evening so much that I thought it would be fun to spend more of it that way.”

“I’d love to spend non-business time with you, Pol,” Aaron said. “And believe me being in your forties, or even fifties, doesn’t exempt you from being embarrassed about broaching personal subjects.”

“Well,” Pol said recovering a bit. “Go back to finish your project with Jack tomorrow. I’m coming home next weekend. Would you consider dinner with me Saturday night?”

“I’d consider it an honor,” Aaron said making an elaborate bow to her. As they rounded the corner to approach the steps to the Lincoln Memorial, he slipped his hand into hers and they climbed to the top.

Chapter Nine B: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

2005-11-15T22:44:00.000-08:00

Wednesday morning Pol had her driver pick Aaron up at his hotel on the way to the office. They drove directly from the dunes to the Indianapolis airport and caught the last flight to DC last night. Her driver picked them up and deposited Aaron at the Sheraton before taking Pol to her condo. They had talked quietly on the trip with Pol largely briefing Aaron on what he would find in the office in Washington. He would be spending the next couple days getting in sync with the legislative agenda and learning the rest of the staff. In general, he would be working out of the Muncie, Indiana office, or his home if he preferred. Careful accounting was needed to keep the campaign expenses separate from the congressional expenses, but there was facility in the Muncie office that was already designated as shared space. He would make trips to Washington DC every two weeks while Pol was in session so they could synchronize their plans and schedules.

Occasionally, as if by accident Pol’s hand would brush against his. She was acknowledging that a connection existed, but she was not ready to discuss it or take it any further.

When they got to the office Pol accompanied Aaron into Nina’s staff meeting. Nina rose to greet her, cutting off the current discussion.

“I know I don’t get into the staff meetings often,” Pol announced, “but I’m pleased that you are all here this morning. I’d like to introduce you to the first person I’ve hired as part of my 2006 campaign. This is Aaron Case, our new Campaign Press Manager.”

“I’m so glad you could get here this morning,” Nina purred. “Won’t you join us for what remains of our staff briefing?”

“Thank you,” Aaron said warmly.

“I’ll leave you in good hands,” Pol said. “We’ll touch base this evening.” She turned and left the conference room entering her own office on the other side of the suite.

“Our meetings normally start at 8:00, Mr. Case,” Nina said. “The Congresswoman may arrive at 9:00, but by that time we try to be hard at work.” Was that a reprimand? Aaron wondered.

“I’m normally an early morning person myself,” Aaron said. “I’ll make it a practice to be with you at 8:00 when I’m in town. Of course, most of my work will be back in Indiana. I expect to be out here every other week.”

“You may find I need you out here more often as we approach the beginning of the campaign,” Nina said. “Why don’t you take a few minutes of our time to introduce yourself to the rest of us.” Nina was hoping he would bring up just about any of the fiascos on his resume so she could start ridiculing him. It would be subtle, but she would get the point driven home and through his heart on the way. But Aaron did not rise to the bait.

“Well, you know the old saw that if you save a man’s life you are responsible for it?” Aaron said. “That’s really what happened. Congresswoman Stamos happened on my auto accident last month and got an ambulance and aide for me. Then because I was unemployed, she offered me a job.” There was laughter from all around the table. Nina was not pleased.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Betts said. “You were just unemployed?”

“Well,” Aaron refined his answer a bit, “self-employed. In the eyes of the world, I’m afraid that the two are assumed to be synonymous.” More laughter. “I’ve got some experience in press offices and newspaper, but mostly I’m trained as a historian. I work a lot compiling oral histories of various regions of Indiana and groups of people. I think more than anything Representative Stamos wanted my understanding of the people in her district, which is where I’ve done a lot of my work over the past ten years. She’s told me that she is one of the only Representatives in Congress whose entire staff comes from her home state. I find that remarkable. Not that you all are Hoosiers, but that no other Representative is as dedicated to employing people from his or her own region. And I have to say, I think that having this kind of talent in the office of our Congresswoman speaks well not only for her, but for our state as well.”

Aaron finished and there was a general round of thanks and welcome aboards from the people at the conference table. It was not going the way Nina had hoped or planned, but before she could intervene Jason raised the question that was on everyone’s mind.

“So does this mean that we’re getting ready for a run for the Senate, Aaron?” he asked. “Everyone at the table was suddenly quiet and attentive. This could be the opportunity Nina was waiting for, but Aaron answered back easily.

“I’m sure that if the Congresswoman were planning a run for the Senate she’d have told you before she told me, and that she’d have hired someone other than this tired old hack to run her press office,” Aaron said. “The word I have is that we are running for re-election. And if I’m not mistaken, that means that no one should take down their pictures or clean out their desks, because you are going to be right back in these seats after the election.” Damn! Nina thought. He is entirely too slick.

“That will be all, folks,” Nina said. “Let’s show Mr. Case that there is actually work that gets done in this office. Socialize later.” The staff immediately rose and headed off to their various tasks, most repeating a good-natured welcome to Aaron. When they were mostly gone but not out of ear-shot, she spoke again, just loudly enough so that all could hear. “Mr. Case, my office now if you please.”

Aaron could see a couple rolled eyes as people passed him and he raised an eyebrow. Well, this was time to figure out who was really who in this pecking order. He turned on his heel and followed Nina into her office. He started off with an olive branch.

“I’ve been looking forward to working with you. The Congresswoman has told me what a tight ship you run in the office and the evidence was surely there this morning,” Aaron said in his friendliest tone.

“Stow it,” Nina snapped. “You may be able to pull the wool over everyone else’s eyes, but I for one am not impressed with your James Whitcomb Riley down home in Indiana style. All I’m interested in is what works, and by that I mean gets Pol Stamos re-elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, or whatever other office she chooses to run for.”

“We have a common goal then,” Aaron said. “Why don’t we start from that.”

“Exactly where I’d like to start, Mr. Case,” Nina continued. “I’ve read your resume. You read like a list of natural disasters. Wounded Knee. That’s a good starting point. Working for the BIA to systematically prop up a corrupt tribal council and facilitate the murder and massacre of exactly how many Native Americans?”

“That was a first assignment as a government employee. I didn’t find out until I got there what it was like and I left as soon as I did.”

“Fine. You didn’t know what job you had taken or anything about what you were supposed to be doing. That still makes for a fine resume,” Nina continued. “Which brings us to your political activist career as Campaign Press Manager for President Carter in San Francisco in the worst defeat an incumbent president has ever suffered in U.S. history. Now that’s information to build a political career on.”

“The President carried San Francisco if you recall,” Aaron announced calmly.

“San Francisco will vote for anyone who shakes hands with a gay man without cringing,” Nina shot. “You’d have had to be illiterate to lose that county for the President.”

“I doubt I could have done any harm if I was illiterate,” Aaron responded. He was beginning to get a little steamed, but so far was staying calm. He was going to need a Vicodin after this meeting just to stop his head from hurting.

“That brings us to the remainders of your stellar career,” Nina continued as though she had rehearsed every word and where in the room she would be pacing when she spoke it. Somehow, Aaron had a feeling she had. “Substitute teacher, basketball coach, librarian, and genealogist. If you were me, what would you think when you found your boss had hired a loser like this to run press office for her campaign.”

“Whether I was you or me, I would be doubting her ability to make a good hiring decision,” Aaron glared directly at Nina.

“I have no self-doubts Mr. Case,” Nina spoke more calmly now and sat behind her desk. “What I really want to know is what the hell you were doing yesterday when you let our candidate alienate herself from a quarter of our state by engaging in a shouting match with the harbormaster at Port of Indiana? In what school of campaign management did you learn to not protect your candidate from that kind of situation? Rule number one is keep your candidate out of situations where she will be made to look a fool. We cannot afford to write off an entire voting bloc if we are going to make a viable run for the Senate.”

“We are not running for the Senate,” Aaron said firmly.

“Even if we decide not to challenge Dick Lugar, we’ll still step up the stakes in the next election. It will be one that we need more than the good will of the people of our District, which you might not be aware are a lot more conservative than our candidate as it is. Those who like her open caring approach will be the first to stab her in the back if they get any indication that she’s anti-business.”

“It was my first time with her and I had no background on the relationship with the harbormaster or even why we were going there. What do you want me to do?” Aaron’s voice was rising in spite of himself. This was not going well.

“I want you to fix it,” Nina shot back immediately. “You broke it, now fix it. In my book you will show that you deserve a place in this universe if you can reverse the damage done by letting yesterday happen. Win back steel and shipping and I’ll re-evaluate my position on your incompetence.”

“All right.”

“What?”

“I said all right, Miss Patterson. I’ll put steel and shipping in our pocket before the primary or I’ll resign.” Nina actually smiled. She had him now. By May he would be gone.

“Thank you Aaron,” she said. “We don’t need to be so formal around here you know.” She was so smug it dug Aaron the wrong way. He regretted already having made his rash statement.

“I’d prefer to keep it formal, Miss Patterson. You may continue to call me Mr. Case,” he said rising from his chair. “Now there are some things I want of you.”

“I didn’t ask what you wanted, Mr. Case.”

“I’m telling you anyway. First, I work directly for Congresswoman Stamos. I am not a government employee and do not expect to be bullied like you treat the rest of your staff. Second, I want full access and information on everything that could have any bearing on her candidacy, for whatever office she choose to run for. That means immediate access, not read it in the papers access. And finally, I want your full cooperation on scheduling the Congresswoman’s time for press conferences and events in Indiana. And don’t give me any more shit. You’ve had your jollies, now get off it. Do I make myself clear?”

“You are so abundantly clear I can see right through you, Mr. Case. I will direct the staff to cooperate fully with you. You won’t have an excuse here for your failure.”

Aaron nodded curtly and left her office.

Chapter Nine A: Midnight Caller

2005-11-15T22:41:00.000-08:00

Nina’s private cell phone rang startling her from sleep. It was the line with the Liechtenstein number and only one person had it. Hmmm, she thought smiling, as she reached for the phone. Only three hours and already he misses me.

“Hello Lover,” she whispered when she opened the phone.

“Jeez, Nina,” Marvin practically shouted into the phone. “Can’t you put a leash on that lady? We won’t be able to run a senatorial campaign if she succeeds in alienating key voter segments like this. Why didn’t you tell me she was going to Burns Ditch?” Nina had just clinched the deal with Marvin earlier this evening, and sealed it with a little more than a kiss. All she had to do was get rid of the new guy and she was confident she could scare him off without actually having to come out against him. But this call was out of the blue.

“What are you talking about, Marvin?” she practically screeched back.

“You mean you don’t know?” Marvin responded in disbelief. “She barged into the harbormaster’s office this afternoon and demanded he stop dredging. Accused him of all sorts of things. They had a royal row and he threw her out of the office promising she wouldn’t get a vote from Portage County or any of the northwestern quadrant for that matter. Christ, Nina, that’s 30% of our voter base. She can’t just blow them off if she is serious about this campaign. I promised to use my information for her campaign, but if she’s going to throw it away, I quit.”

“Take it easy, Lover,” Nina cooed. She was seething at this bit of info, but she didn’t want Marvin to know she wasn’t in control. He was too valuable an asset and the way she was paying him had benefits for her, too. “She just was going up there to ditch the new guy,” she continued. “Something must have gotten out of control. I’ll see to it that she issues a formal apology to the Harbormaster and patches everything over. They were getting on well this fall.”

“What do you mean, ‘ditch the new guy,’” Marvin asked.

“Oh it’s something she does with everyone who comes to work for her. You’ll see soon enough. She takes them up to show them the harbor and the dunes, as if they’ve never seen them before, to give them her spiel on business and environment. It must have been an accident that she ran into Brian Borden on this trip.”

“Accident or no accident,” Marvin said, “it may take more than a formal apology to calm them down right now. I’ve been called by three corporate presidents in the steel industry in the past hour and they all want me to pull out the stops to put her career to an end. I’m going to have to walk a pretty fine line to look like I’m working for them while I’m getting your girl positioned to run.”

“I know you’re up to it, baby,” Nina murmured. “You know that thing you keep wanting me to do that I won’t? Well, I will if you make this go away.” He could take his pick of the things she wouldn’t do that he wanted, it didn’t make a difference. She knew better now how to control him than she did when they’d dated in college.

“You know I’ll do my best, girl,” he responded mollified. Now doubt he was already figuring out which thing he wanted. “I don’t know why you had to leave tonight. We were just getting going.”

“That’s the problem,” she smirked. “I have to work in the morning. You can lay in bed. If I stayed with you I’d never make it to staff meeting and we can’t afford any gossip just now, right?”

“Yeah, right. But you know it’s gonna happen babe, just as soon as I fix this up.”

“I’m counting on it,” she whispered back. “Now go to bed and let me get some sleep. I’m going to need my rest for the performance I’ve got to give tomorrow. ‘Night now.”

Sleep was the furthest thing from Nina’s mind as she whipped the covers off her and started pacing up and down in the bedroom when Marvin finally hung up. Damn! What was that idiot thinking, letting the Congresswoman get in a shouting match with a stupid harbormaster. What was he doing? She had to get rid of him as quickly as possible. She couldn’t afford an unknown screwing up her plans for her Congresswoman.

It was 1:30 in the morning. She wasn’t getting any more sleep tonight anyway. She showered and dressed, tossed a change of clothes in her overnight bag and headed for the office to prepare for tomorrow’s staff meeting.

Chapter Eight C: Indiana Dunes

2005-11-15T22:38:00.000-08:00

They pulled away from the harbor and turned left on U.S. Highway 12. The highway was proudly signed as West Dunes Highway. In about five miles Pol left the highway and entered the Indiana Dunes State Park. Unlike the National Lakeshore, the park gates were open and they joined a dozen or so cars parked in the visitor lot. The lot looked almost deserted. In the summer hundreds of cars would be jammed into it. But now there was an area of about two rows of parking stalls that had been cleared of snow for winter hikers.

Pol had warned him to bring winter boots and Aaron changed into his Sorrels before setting foot outside the car this time. He pulled a stocking cap out of the pocket of the parka that he wore and tugged it down over his ears, then put on heavy gloves. He could already feel the biting wind attacking from across the lake hurling frozen spray mixed with sand into the air, stinging his cheeks. He looked for Pol and saw that she, too, was dressed for a cold weather outing. She motioned him along with her and they set out across the dunes.

There is a kind of majesty to the sand dunes around Lake Michigan that defies description. The dunes rise away from the Lake in waves as much as fifty and a hundred feet high. And these are the small dunes. The further north east you went along the shore the taller the dunes become until they are mountains of sand. Trees have taken root in the light soil and hold the general shape in place. Thousands of visitors have worn trails into the sand that leave cuts up to three feet deep between the banks.

It was slow going for Aaron. Although the doctor said that the ribs had knit back together fairly well, there was still pain which he knew would disappear only slowly over the next several months. The doctor had scheduled him to start Physical Therapy next week, warning him that if he didn’t stretch and repair the torn cartilage between the ribs he would start to experience limited motion in his right arm. Since Aaron instinctively avoided raising his arm above a certain point or reach out with his right hand, he understood how easy it would be to lose that range of motion permanently. Better to endure the pain now than to face it later, the doctor had said. Aaron had refilled his Vicodin prescription in spite of Jack’s warnings about over-using the drug. He found that he parceled them out for the moments he knew he would be in worst shape, usually late at night when he had stayed up working.

They emerged from the shelter of the trees to stand atop one of taller dunes where they could see far out across the lake. The visibility was impaired by the blowing ice and sand, but to the west Aaron could see the flames rising from the smoke stacks of oil and gas refineries that operated along the lake from Michigan City all the way to East Chicago. It was an eerie sight. Along the shoreline chunks of ice floated on the waves. Suddenly a dark shape took flight from near them on the dune. At first Aaron thought it was a huge bird and instinctively ducked causing a wincing pain in his weary ribs. Then as the shape glided toward the lake that it was a human, hanging from a glider. He and Pol stared agape at the hangglider as he sailed over the beach and out over the frigid water. In a couple minutes he banked steeply and swept back toward shore losing altitude rapidly in the heavy wind. He was about fifty feet from the waves when he landed, running on the beach with the kite pushing him down from behind.

“Now there’s an endangered species,” Aaron chuckled breathing out for what seemed the first time since the glider took off.

“You would think that natural selection would have weeded those out by now,” laughed Pol. Now that their silence had been broken for the first time since leaving the harbor, they felt free to talk together again. “I wanted to bring you out here to explain why I am so passionate about protecting this site,” Pol started. “I was born the year the Army Corps of Engineers identified Burns Ditch as the best site for a new Harbor. The same year a proposal reached the Kennedy administration to turn this entire section of land from Michigan City to Gary into a National Lakeshore to protect it from further development just as they were doing to Kennedy’s home area on Cape Cod. I was raised coming to the Indiana Dunes or Ogden Dunes every spring with my family to swim in Lake Michigan on Memorial Day weekend. My dad was from LaPorte and he loved to come up here two or three times every summer. Occassionally we would change the routine and go north into Michigan to climb Tower Hill, but Dad always said that was too commercial and nothing was as beautiful as our own Indiana Lakeshore.”

“I remember a bit of the controversy,” Aaron said. “I remember debating the issues in… what? fifth grade social studies? It was posed as a classic case of industrialization versus the rising hippie anti-establishment.”

“That’s the way it was presented by both sides, unfortunately,” Pol said, “but there was no reason that both a harbor, at the secondary site in Gary and the Dunes National Lakeshore couldn’t have been successful. But when the question is posed as one of the environment versus the economy, the environment always loses. It’s one of the things I have to work on hardest in the next two years. I have to come at this issue with a positive solution that allows the people we’ve met and that I’ve told you about today to maintain their perceived lifestyle by improving it, and still stops scarring our landscape and environment. You’ve got to help me do that.”

“That’s going to be hard,” Aaron said.

“But,” said Pol, “I’m informed that in addition to being politically savvy and a good writer, you are also a good researcher.” She let that hang in the air and Aaron chose to interpret the comment as Pol having checked his references rather than as having any connection to his work with Jack. Eventually Pol moved on from the subject.

“There is another reason I wanted to bring you out here, though,” Pol said. “I’ve brought all my staff to this site and I’ve given them my lecture on finding the balance between business and environment. So much so that they’ve come to refer to the event as ‘being ditched.’ Please don’t mention that I know about that,” Pol giggled. “It would destroy morale for them to think I know that much about what goes on among my staff. Nina is supposed to be my conduit to the happenings in the office and it wouldn’t help her reputation if they thought she told me everything.”

“Does she?”

“Oh no. She tells me exactly what I should know and prevents me from being side-tracked by what shouldn’t concern me. She is very good at her job as you will find.”

“I’m looking forward to working with her.”

“We’ll see,” Pol quipped enigmatically. “Now, on to my ulterior motive. You already know more about me than any other member of my staff. More of what counts in the long-run. I’m a very good judge of character, Aaron, and I sensed in you an ability to truly empathize with others. It is what has made working in some of the areas you have so difficult. You feel too deeply for the people that you work with. You embody your cause too fully.”

“Is that a problem?” Aaron asked.

“For some it might be,” Pol answered, “but for me it is an asset that I value above all others. I want you to see what I see in this area, these sand dunes of the Midwest. And I couldn’t hope to show you in any other environment.”

“I think I’m beginning to see,” Aaron answered.

“Yes, but not the way I want you to see,” Pol continued. “I brought you to this particular spot because there is a sheltered area just over here where we can sit together.” Pol showed Aaron to a spot just under the trees where a tree had fallen. The log made an excellent seat sheltered from the wind while still looking out over the lake. They sat side by side. “Take off your gloves, Aaron,” Pol suggested as she removed her own. When he had done so she reached for his hands. “Close your eyes and give me your hands. I want to guide you to look into what I see.

Okay, Aaron thought. She was born in the sixties, I was a teen in the sixties. I know how this is done. All we need is a little weed. He let her take his hands in her own. He was surprised that her hands were much warmer than his, but realized that she had been wearing ski mittens. He’d have to look into that. But in the meantime he’d just close his eyes and enjoy holding her hands.

It wasn’t that Aaron was unwilling to be guided in this kind of exercise. He’d done enough of this kind of thing before. He thought about how he really would like to see the things that Pol was describing. He’d like to slip down past the beach in his mind and feel the icy cold waves of the lake as long as he didn’t have to physically touch the water. It wasn’t that difficult to imagine examining the bed of the lake as he worked his way along the shore; even to sink beneath the seaweed (no kudzu here) and into crust of the earth. Pol described the various layers in such exact detail that he could actually imagine what each looked like, right down to the sand and limestone bedrock that supported the weight of all that water. She thought it was a living thing, so even though he was much more interested in the living hands that were held in his, as she described its pulse, he could imagine the earth itself pulsing beneath the bedrock surface. As she guided him into the harbor channel he could still hear the whine of the dredging engines. The depth of 27 feet that was negotiated in the sixties when the Army Corps wanted to create the channel out into Lake Michigan at a dept of 36 feet was a compromise that had no real effect on the shipping that drove business in the harbor during the spring summer and fall months. But the Corps had argued that a deeper channel pushed out into the lake nearly a mile would increase the general water movement just enough that the channel would not freeze over solid in the winter months. But, there was no real reason to keep it open in winter as no ships wintered in this harbor when they could be plying the seas by leaving the St. Lawrence before it froze. Port of Indiana was typically empty nearly a month before the Seaway closed for the winter as Captains of sea-going vessels made for the Atlantic.

But what Pol was showing him now (Okay, saying. He was paying attention to her voice, not just holding her hands.) was that the bedrock was actually very near the depth of the channel here. Digging it deeper would require gouging into the bedrock itself which was probably the reason the Corps decided not to go deeper. But the dredgers had scraped off all the silt and soil down to the rock bed. As the machinery whined, Aaron could almost feel the scraping pain of steel against the rockbed, grinding it away a little at a time. But it didn’t seem to be adequate to cause so much concern, or so much pain in the surface of the earth.

Then he saw the soft spot. (Okay, imagined he saw it as Pol described it. He reminded himself that the only thing real about this was the feel of her hands in his, which were still remarkably warm.) Then he was plunging down through the soft spot being dragged on the water’s relentless path into the crust of the earth, seeping between layers of bedrock far out from shore and then down again to where the earth’s plates ground against each other. This wasn’t right, he thought. There are no faults in this part of the country. He knew enough basic earth science to know that. The very idea that water was building up in a cavity between two crust plates was so absurd that he wanted to scream out that she was wrong. But it wasn’t his scream. It was the earth screaming in pain as an old wound was repeatedly re-opened by the relentless scraping of the dredgers. He looked at the debris that littered the lake bottom and shore as he returned toward the sand dunes. Sunken boats, dead fish, drums of toxic looking substances seeping into the water. The entire picture was nightmarish now that he knew that the earth was suffering beneath the surface of Lake Michigan. That to build the harbor they had scraped the scab off an old wound that the earth was trying to heal and was becoming angrier and angrier about enduring. With his new-found imagination, it was all too easy to imagine that the catastrophe of a mid-Lake Michigan earthquake would cause. Chicago, just forty-five minutes from the harbor, and one of North America’s most densely populated centers, would be destroyed. Loss of life could be measured in the millions. The economic disaster would cripple the nation and drive the world’s major economies into a new dark ages. Aaron was frankly surprised that Pol had gone into politics instead of script-writing for the movies. This would make a doozy of a disaster film.

Finally, he had to just turn off the projection and open his eyes. The world snapped back into focus as did the acute sensation of Pol’s hands held in his. She still had her eyes closed, as though she were still guiding him through the earth’s crust. She was really quite lovely. She’d been his guardian angel the night of the accident, getting him help, visiting him, taking care of his insurance. But for all her strengths, she was showing her vulnerabilities to him now. It was the exact weakness/strength that she told him he possessed: embodying the cause to such an extent that she hurt whenever it was hurt. It was that unexpected vulnerability that he saw painted on her face and her gently smiling lips. He suddenly wanted to fall onto those lips with passion and regained control of himself by trying to remove his hands from hers. Her eyes snapped open, but she did not relinquish her grip. Instead she smiled, leaned forward as she pulled him toward her and kissed him.

It was not the ravishing passion that he had moments ago fantasized, but rather a gentle, lingering brush of the lips that made his heart skip a beat.

“I knew you would be able to see,” she said. “I’ve waited so long for someone I could share this with.” She brushed his lips again then stood, helping him to his feet. Finally she released one of his hands so they could walk beside each other as she kept firm hold of his other hand.

Chapter Eight B: Burns Ditch

2005-11-15T22:37:00.000-08:00

Aaron stopped to think a moment. It was his fourth meeting with Pol Stamos and he was now officially her Campaign Press Manager. It certainly hadn’t been that quick with the Carter campaign, and he had only ever met the President once during his two years in the San Francisco office. Still, this felt right. He had listened for the full two hour ride out to Michigan City as Pol painted a vision for the State of Indiana that included a leadership position in natural resource conservation and tenancy.

He had to admit that some of her ideas seemed a little on the woo-woo side unless you dug into the strategies and numbers that lay underneath them. If nothing else, this was going to require careful positioning as he started writing press releases. It was curious that she was going so far out of her district to introduce him to an issue that she wanted to make central in her gubernatorial race in two years. She spoke frankly to him about her electoral strategy moving out ten years to the end of her second term as governor. What then, he asked. Wait and see, was her response. She was forthright about there being others involved in the decision. She would not go further than that, however, and reminded him that he was the only one who knew yet of her gubernatorial plans.

As they drove through Portage on the way to the harbor, Pol turned off the main route and drove back and forth through the town. It wasn’t much to look at.

“These people, or their parents, fought tooth and nail through the sixties to get the Port of Indiana dug out of a swampy wasteland in the middle of one of the most scenic spots in North America,” Pol said as if she were introducing him to them individually. “But little good it has done them. The Port employs very few people itself. It’s steel that drives the economy. But it makes no difference. Whether you are working at the Port or in the mills, it is hard, back-breaking work. There is no way to get ahead. You work for an hourly wage. Your union is afraid to go to bat for better working conditions because there are so many other places these mills could move their business to. Lake Michigan is bordered by Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin, every one of which has a labor force that is under-utilized. The Port was supposed to insure their reliance on steel. It would keep the mills supplied with ore and provide a channel to ship refined steel to the world through the St. Lawrence Seaway.

“But a steel-based economy is no more dependable than the tourist-based economy provided by the National Seaside Reserve that surrounds it. And it is considerably more dangerous.” Pol pulled up opposite a small cottage and idled her hybrid car as she pointed. She nodded toward a ramp that ran from the driveway up to the front porch. “Amos Brown lost the use of his legs in an accident involving a crane and a loose load of steel bars being shipped to Japan. His worker’s compensation and Social Security together bring his total family income to $2200 per month. He has three children under the age of 10.” She pulled away from the curb and turned left at the next corner. In a block she pulled to the side again. Pointing across Aaron to the right side of the street he could see nothing strange about the house.

“Evan Graber lost his father in a steel mill accident twenty years ago. He was eighteen and the only life he knew was the steel mill. He found out last year that he has lung cancer, probable cause: breathing the coal dust used to fire the smelting furnaces. He’s been in chemo for the last 8 months. It doesn’t look good.” Pol pulled away from the curb again. It seemed that in every block she knew someone who had suffered a major loss from going to work at the port, the mills, or in some other supportive industry in the town. The oral historian in Aaron had mentally clicked on record as he heard the stories, one after another. This was something that he would have to start writing as soon as he could get to his computer. It was amazing. And yet, she said, the people defended the harbor and the mills against all who would bring change. It was all they knew. It was their life and it was killing them.

At last the arrived at the harbor itself. Port of Indiana was not all that impressive when seen in the light of the shipping traffic in San Francisco and Oakland, Portland, Tacoma, or any of the other west coast ports that Aaron had seen. As they stepped out of the car and moved toward the harbor house, Aaron could hear beyond the fence a high pitched whine of machinery straining against an obstacle.

“Damn!” Pol snarled and stormed into the office. Aaron was taken aback at the vehemence of her curse.

“May I help you?” asked a young woman behind the front desk. As far as Aaron could see she was the only one in the office.

“I’m here to see the harbormaster,” Pol said as she came in.

“He’s not avail…” The receptionists words were lost on the retreating back of Pol as she stepped purposefully past her desk and shoved open the door to the inner office. Aaron gave a startled look at the receptionist who was shocked to silence herself and quickly followed Pol.

“Representative Stamos,” said the balding man behind the desk. “What a surprise.” He wasn’t making any attempt at civility and it was clear that though the moment may not have been predicted, the visit was no surprise at all.

“Brian,” Pol charged right in, “what the hell are those dredgers doing out there? We had an agreement. Waiting to dredge until the Seaway opened would have been plenty of time to keep the channel clear. And soundings are reporting that you are close to 30 feet deep now. The channel was never supposed to be more than 27 feet. What is going on?”

“Look here, Representative,” the harbormaster rose, “you can’t point to any kind of agreement. Delaying dredging was only a course of action I was considering. And I put it off as long as I felt I could.”

“What could be so urgent to require them to break the ice in harbor and dredge?” Pol asked.

“I have no reason to tell you, Representative,” he said turning away, “but this is something you should be interested in seeing as you are such an environmentalist.” He lifted a tub of wet seaweed on set it on his desk. “You know what this is?” he asked lifting a handful of the soggy grass from the tub. “You’re a big environmentalist. You should know what this is.”

“It’s kudzu,” Pol said flatly. A little of the steam seemed to leave her. “What are you doing with that?”

“That is what we’re dredging out of our harbor,” the harbormaster declared. “Oh, you’re big on stopping shipping in the fresh water lakes, but you’re not doing a thing about the damn fresh water fishermen who are bringing their boats up from the south all summer long with this stuff stuck in their propellers and on the bottoms of their boats. Oh no, that’s recreation. And the fact that this weed is now infesting our lake is of no matter.”

“Infestations of kudzu take years to develop and we check constantly for it. There is no way you could suddenly have an overgrowth in the harbor,” Pol sounded just a little less certain than she had when she barged into the office.

“Right,” Brian challenged her. “And on your other hot issues list, you don’t seem to care that everyone at harbor was laid off when the seaway closed just before Christmas. That includes the ten men who are now employed to keep those two dredgers operating this month. The fact that I can provide an income for at least a dozen of my employees may not mean much to you, but for this community it means that a dozen families will have heat and won’t be requiring food stamps. It means that exactly two days after the seaway opens there will be a shipment of coke to unload for the mills and that six barges of steel will be moved out in the first two weeks.”

“There has got to be a different way than dredging. You’ve got a fish kill that is the largest we’ve ever seen out here,” Pol said trying to regain her higher ground. “And we’ve shown repeatedly that the human dangers to the dredging crew are tripled in winter. You won’t be doing those guys’ families any favors if you ship them home crippled or in a body bag.”

“You just don’t get it Miss Stamos.” Aaron noticed that the grudgingly given title of respect that the harbormaster had used at the beginning of the meeting was gone and the respect was following fast. “They will risk their lives in this industry because not having it would mean their entire livelihood and community would go to hell. You can get out of my office now and go back to Washington D.C. where you don’t have to see or hear about real problems. We have enough representatives who understand that we can vote down any piece of legislation you bring up.”

“On your payroll, you mean,” Pol shot back.

“If they were, there’s one thing that you can be sure of,” Brian glared at her. “You’ll never be employed there. Nor will you get any of the votes of this community when you try to replace Dick Lugar in the Senate. Now go. Get out of my office!” he fairly shouted at her.

Pol turned on her heel and stormed out of the office. Aaron glanced at the harbormaster who had now turned his gaze on Aaron. Aaron hurried to follow Pol. When they were in the car, Pol sighed.

“Well, that didn’t go all that well,” she said. “She started the car and pulled away from the docks. In the distance Aaron could still hear the whine of the dredgers’ engines.

Chapter Eight A: Calm in Washington

2005-11-15T04:56:00.000-08:00

“Now holiday plans,” Nina said, moving down her agenda. “The Congresswoman is planning to spend President’s Day weekend back home. She plans to spend an extra day so I want everybody scrubbing the calendars to make sure there is nothing significant coming to the floor on Tuesday. Jason, if The Great Lakes Bill suddenly makes an appearance out of committee on Tuesday and she’s not here to speak on it, your ass is grass.”

“That bill is never coming out of committee,” grumbled Jason. “It was sent there to starve to death.”

“I thought we had a motion to consider,” Nina said.

“Tabled,” Jason answered. “Whoever got to these guys locked it down tight. No one is moving and no one is saying anything. The President might as well have killed it. Only we could track that down.”

“Anybody come up with anything yet?” Nina asked the rest of the staff. They all shook their heads. “People, do any of you know how much the Congresswoman wants this bill to move? We can’t even give her a lead? Come on.”

“How about you, Nina?” Jason asked. “Anything from steel?”

“Insists that he intended to lobby it, but someone beat him to it,” Nina responded. “I think he’s being honest for once.”

“I thought you had to sleep with that guy to get info from him,” snickered Betts. Everyone looked a little glance at Nina. She didn’t flinch.

“If I thought it would get the answer we need, I would,” she said flatly. People audibly swallowed their thoughts. “Unfortunately my best bargaining chip isn’t my body and it’s been snatched out from under me.”

“What’s going on, Nina?” Al Sisson asked. He normally worked the back office, but everyone recognized that he was a sharp strategist who preferred to be in the background. “Why is the Congresswoman taking an extra day in Indiana? Are we about to get the announcement that she’s going after Lugar?” Nina hesitated a moment before answering. She’d been holding this news from the staff until the right moment, but there didn’t seem to be one. People were going to be very disappointed.

“She’s meeting with her new campaign press manager,” Nina said calmly although inwardly she was seething. “But don’t get your hopes up. He hasn’t got the balls to run a Senatorial campaign. The official word is we’re running for re-election. That should be good news for all you yahoos. There isn’t one out of three of us that could make the jump to a Senate office. Let’s use this next two years to go get really good at making this office run. Like getting bills to the house floor.”

“Why would she hire a new press manager if we’re not ramping up for a bigger campaign?” Al persisted. “Sounds like overkill to me.”

“It was ‘Be Kind to Old Hippies’ week when she was back in Indiana the last time. Believe me, having this guy as a press manager is not ramping up for a bigger campaign.”

“Bitter?” Betts quipped. She instantly regretted the minor lapse.

“Anyone who takes a place in the Pol Stamos office or campaign without my personal stamp can assume that they are going to walk on coals for the entire time they survive in this office,” Nina snarled. “And anyone who expects to keep working in this office had better stop with the sarcasm and do some serious ass-kissing before I remember what a shitty job they did on keeping the Congresswoman informed on her pet projects, like dredging in the Port.”

“Sorry, Nina,” Betts shrank back. Technically it wasn’t her fault that she didn’t know about the dredging before Uncle Alex walked into the office. It isn’t in the Congresswoman’s district. But all the same, Nina could make life hell for her if she chose to.

“Nina,” Al continued, “you still haven’t said what she’s doing for an extra day in Indiana.”

“She’s ditching the new guy,” Nina said. “Remember when she took the whole staff to the Port? She told us the entire history of Burns Ditch harbor and the historic battles that had split Indiana over its creation in the sixties. Then she made us walk in the sand dunes with our shoes off so we’d know why she was so passionate about protecting the natural resources of Indiana’s Lake Michigan shoreline. Come on people. Did you think that was just for us? Every person she brings on staff has to make the pilgrimage. Aaron Case is getting the same treatment. I’m just thankful that we got ours during the summer break. This dude is getting sand and snow.”

“When do we get to meet the new boy?” Jason asked.

“Remember, technically he is not a part of the Congresswoman’s staff. He is on her campaign staff which is a separate entity. Of course we all believe in the Congresswoman so much that we each and every one of us volunteers our off-hours time to help in her re-election.” Nina carefully enunciated each and every word of that last sentence, just to make sure that they all understood the expectation that was coming up in a few short months. Even though it was not part of their jobs, they were expected to help anyway they could to get their boss re-elected. It wouldn’t be prudent to act otherwise. “But Representative Stamos wants us all to know who is working for her back home, so she’s bringing him back with her after the weekend. You’ll get to meet him next Wednesday or Thursday.”

“You’ve met him?”

“Yeah. I met him the day she hired him.”

“Well, what’s he like?”

“Yeah, dish!” Nina looked around the table at each of people seated there.

“He is a washed up old hippie who is so old and out of it that he can’t even stand up straight. He’s a disaster,” she said. “We will all be better served if we make sure that his tenure on the Congresswoman’s campaign staff is as short as possible. I’ll expect everyone’s best efforts. I have someone in mind for that position and I want to move on it as soon as possible. Understand?”

Everyone nodded their heads. When Nina came at them in her gunslinger mode, they knew better than to contradict her. But this was particularly vicious. No one was going to take a bullet for the guy they hadn’t even met yet. Better to do as she said and get on with it.

“Okay. We’re finished for today. Let’s make sure the decks are clear for the Congresswoman’s weekend in Indiana.” Nina stood and left the room. The others gathered their things and glanced at each other. Occasionally there was a nod of understanding among them, but no words were spoken.

Chapter Seven C: Land Patent

2005-11-13T14:22:00.000-08:00

Dinner with Janice was a pleasant experience. Aaron hadn’t actually been out on a date in several months, unless you could call weekly tea and sherry with a 90+-year-old a date. He couldn’t tell exactly where this relationship might take him. They talked about everything. He found discovered more about Janice’s past and how hard life was with her mother. She really hadn’t had many boyfriends because there just didn’t seem to be time for them with her mother. Aaron told her in turn about how life had been as a bachelor since his wife died.

The one thing they did not discuss was politics. Janice summed up her opinion of politics and politicians as “people with the power to screw you, using it.” Aaron didn’t talk much about his upcoming job. Nor did they discuss Mike and his relationship with Janice. She said he seemed like a nice enough guy if you could get past the fact that he was a car salesman. But she really appreciated his giving her a chance to work in his company. She had to admit that she liked it better than clerking in a drugstore.

With Aaron’s condition there was never any question of the date going further than a rather chaste good-night kiss on the cheek.

Aaron spent the better part of the next week researching Hattie’s family tree. Sadly, he found record that both her brothers had been killed in World War II. Her parents lived on the homestead until they were in their 70s and another, much younger daughter inherited the farm. Hattie had made quite a career on the dying Vaudeville circuit, and did a number of small parts in musicals both on Broadway and abroad. She had just enough success to lend an air of glamour to her life, but in the end had retired to Fort Wayne.

The most significant discovery he made occurred while he and Jack were in the County Records office looking up the original parceling out of the land in Wells County. Indeed, Hattie’s great-grandfather had been the original settler on the property. He had acquired the land patent to 160 acres for the sum of one dollar in 1838. The land was technically on the Miami Indian reservation and was listed as acquired from “X” of the Miami tribe. The description resulting from survey was “the south half of the southwest quarter of Section 13 and the south half of the southeast quarter of Section 14 of Union Township in the County of Wells, State of Indiana.”

“Look at this,” Jack said as he was reading the maps. “Did you get that description copied down right?”

“Of course, why?”

“Because Twelve Oaks lies on Old man Strongman’s property. Out toward the edge, but definitely on the property,” Jack said.

“Well, that means that he must have ceded the land to some church or other,” Aaron said. “Hattie talks about he church as though it had been there for a long time when she was a little girl.”

“Yes,” Jack said. “But for the moment you really can’t just believe whatever she says without backing it up.”

“Well, that’s always the case with oral histories,” Aaron said. “You know that they are always tossing in little anecdotes that you just have to check out. I’ve gotten that cake from scratch story how many times? Three?”

“But you always let them tell it, and it always shows up in your books.”

“Call it cultural mythology,” Aaron said. “Certain themes show up in certain times. We find a repeated element someplace has a grain of truth in it.”

“And you think there’s a grain of truth in the old lady’s aliens?”

“I didn’t say that,” Aaron, said. “And I can’t find any land transfers between Hattie’s great grandfather and her father. They all seemed to inherit the land in tact.”

“So that means that the family loaned or leased the property to the church at some point and there may not have been a deed filed for it,” Aaron says. “We’re back at square one. What bugs me is that Hattie said she didn’t know anyone who went to church there, but that Harper’s funeral was held there.”

“Well, the cemetery is across the road,” Jack said. “That’s not on the Strongman property and people may have used the Twelve Oaks church as a kind of funeral chapel without actually going to church there.”

“Do you think that’s all it is?” Aaron asked. “Is it just a funeral chapel for the cemetery? I’ve got to go out sometime and see if there are services on Sundays.”

“Well, here’s the address of the homestead,” Jack said. “We’ll do a title search next week and gather the whole history of the property. There must be a mention of improvements someplace.”

“Well, you know the kind of records that have been kept in some of these instances. We’re just going to have to see where it leads,” Aaron said. “But I think I’ll drive out there Friday afternoon and look on my way to see Hattie.”

“Just be careful. I don’t believe places can actually be haunted, but it sure isn’t a place that’s been friendly to you.”

When Friday came, Aaron tossed his briefcase in the backseat of his Forester and headed out at about noon. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but thought that at least he would get a better feel for the surrounding land. He wanted to visualize the place the way Hattie saw it. It hadn’t apparently changed all that much over the years. Development had just begun to move out this far from Fort Wayne. In another ten years, it would probably be covered with developments. This time when he drove down, he went through Ossian and out to the west. It was a different approach, but Aaron had printed both maps and satellite images from Google. He used the GPS tracker on his cell phone to plot points of interest on the maps.

From the east, the church and trees on the hilltop could be more clearly seen. Most of the terrain on that side had been cultivated, so aside from the fence rows there were few trees. Zoning laws had held firm in this part of the county, establishing the minimum building lot for new construction as five acres. On each of these long narrow plots, houses sprang up from the fertile soil with acres of lawn to mow and driveways that must be a bear to plow in the winter. What do they do? He thought. Just hibernate from the time the first snow falls until spring thaw? It was a strange lifestyle.

This time Aaron brought boots and a walking stick to help stabilize his footing. He pulled up to the church and looked at it warily as though it were a strange animal around which he must be cautious. Once bitten, twice shy, the thought wryly. Nonetheless, when he finally got out of the car, he crossed the road to explore the old cemetery. It was still in use for new burials as Aaron spotted several stones with dates less than ten years old, but the oldest sections boasted dates as far back as the 1830s. There were names that he recognized from his studies of the area—Bachman, Rhodes, Strongman, Dietz—and a large number that had not yet crossed his path. But where is Harper MacKenzie?

Aaron kept searching until he found a section of the graveyard that seemed to be non-family based. In many of the areas a single family occupied a large plot where generations had been buried stretching back into the 1800s. Then there were sections that people who seemed to have no connection to the community at all were buried. In these areas, each gravestone carried a different surname, or when duplicate surnames were found, the stones were far apart. Aaron went down a row of graves that seemed to have all been from the 1920s. The dates progressed in chronological order. From the direction that Aaron was walking, they were going down. 1929, 1928, 1927. It should be here in this area, he thought, but past 1926 and 1925 he was about to give up. Hattie stated her age as 95, which meant she was born in 1910. At sixteen when Harper died, it should have been 1926. He nearly turned to search elsewhere when he noticed a curious stone. Most were well-cut, if heavily weathered stones. Crosses, sometimes with celtic designs, arch-topped tombstones engraved on one side only, obelisks. In this section, mostly plain rectangular tombstones, probably the cheapest kind judging by the amount of wear on them. Aaron was doing a lot bending over and scrubbing at the stones with his glove to make out the names and dates.

But just ahead of him was a different kind of stone set off a bit from the others. Aaron almost passed it up thinking it was just a rock, in fact that is exactly what it was—a rock with one polished surface on which were inscribed the simple words: Harper MacKenzie, b.? d. 1923, My Guardian Angel. She’d actually set the stone with her own inscription. But this date was all wrong wasn’t it? It would seem to mean that Aunt Hattie was at least 98 years old! Well, stranger things had happened than having an interviewee mix up her birth date or age. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and snapped a picture of the stone and sent it to his e-mail address. He’d want to include this in the book if he used the story.

Satisfied in the cemetery, Aaron headed back for the church. This time he avoided the front door altogether. He wasn’t even going to bother checking the lock. Instead he walked, leaning heavily on his stick, through the snow to the back of the church. There had been some warm weather and then a freeze meaning that there was a thin layer of ice over the remaining snow that crunched each time Aaron stepped through it.

In back of the church were a semi-circle of trees: majestic old oaks. They must be two or three hundred years old, he thought. He counted. There were seven standing. He could see one gap and an opening on the east where several trees seemed to have fallen. Well, there were supposed to have been twelve at one time or another. There was really nothing he could do from out here in the snow he thought, but he glanced up at the back of the church to see if he could see the stained glass window from here.

It was there, but it had been covered with a kind of pebbled glass on the outside so he couldn’t actually see the window. Well, that wasn’t uncommon either. A lot of churches had installed this kind of outer shell over their stained glass as vandalism became more common. Some had gone so far as to install lights between the stained glass and the pebbled glass so that even at night the stained glass was illuminated inside the building. He’d just have to bide his time until he could get inside again. He returned to the car and started down the hill.

He drove slowly past where is accident was, but there was still no sign of anything untoward having happened there. At the bottom of the hill, the terrain changed and on the west side of Co Rd N100W everything was flat and open, apparently under cultivation in the summer months. As he turned right he could clearly see the farmhouse and group of outbuildings that must comprise the Strongman homestead. He slowed as he approached imagining Hattie careening down the hill and into the driveway to crash into a trellis that was no longer there. The house looked dark and cold, but it had signs of habitation. Aaron pulled just far enough into the unplowed drive to turn around and head south. He angled the car back out onto the road slipping nearly into the mailbox. As he turned his head to look back he was suddenly brought short by the one word on the box.

“Stamos.”

Chapter Seven B: Car shopping

2005-11-12T21:24:00.000-08:00

“And then she was just a little old lady again and told me enough about her land and family that I’m pretty sure I can get the original homestead records,” Aaron told the small group around the poker table later that night.

“Well, now you know the reason people call her Mad Aunt Hattie,” Jack chuckled. “Her boyfriend was an alien who flies around in an old church.”

“Shades of Doctor Who,” Arnold Sandusky chuckled. “Now which do you think would be more maneuverable in space—a British telephone booth or an old church?” They all chuckled.

“Unfortunately, it throws everything I’ve learned from her into doubt. I mean, she could have made the whole thing up. I’ve got to see how much of this I can verify from other old people and old records now.”

“Well, you’ve had yourself one heck of a week, haven’t you,” Mike asked. He’d come back to play poker this week and report on the outcome of having met his daughter. He was pretty pleased. “We’re not trying to be father and daughter,” he’d said. “We’re just trying to get to know each other.”

“Well, it has been,” Aaron said. “I have to say that when I pulled out of the Home tonight I was in no way tempted to try to drive by that place again. I came straight up the highway and got my butt into a nice warm chair here at Jack’s.”

“Got a good hot meal into him, too,” Jack said. “You’d think he was a starving child in Pakistan the way Theresa stuffed food into him.”

“You’d think she was a taxidermist when you talk about it like that,” Aaron quipped. “When are you going to get her a restaurant anyway?”

“Do you think I’m going to let all the other old men in town know what a good cook she is? It’s bad enough having her feed you kids all the time,” Jack answered.

“If it wasn’t for her food you know half of us wouldn’t have survived college,” Adele said. Another of Jack’s former students, she ran the classified advertising department at the Fort Wayne Sentinel. It didn’t sound very impressive, but it gave her access to the newspaper’s vast database of information. Searches for obscure information were much faster when you had direct access to the database instead of having to go through the web interfaces to published articles.

“So are you satisfied with the results of your research commission?” Jack asked Mike.

“I couldn’t have asked for better results,” Mike answered. “Do you need a reference?”

“No,” Jack said. “Not a reference, referrals. Since we started this, it’s been our policy to never advertise. We just ask those we take commissions from to refer others to us.”

“I’d be happy to,” Mike said. “Sometimes I hear things, you know. Mostly people want to know about cars, but sometimes. You never know.”

“It wouldn’t be bad if we get questions that concern cars if you could give us a hand as well,” Jack remarked.

“Hey!” Aaron interjected. “That’s stupid of me! I need a car. I hunted all over the south side of town today and didn’t even think of coming up to see you. Think you can fix me up with a new car, Mike?”

Mike hemmed a little, and said “Uh, sure Aaron. What did you have in mind?”

“Oh, look,” Aaron said. “You’ve already paid your fees. It’s nothing like that. But we tend to take our business to those who we do business with. I’m just looking for a late-model used car that will get me around and not make me feel as old as I feel whenever I move at the moment.”

“I’m sure we could find something. Why don’t you come in tomorrow?” Mike said.

“Sure,” Aaron said. “Sorry I didn’t think of doing business with you before now. It’s the drugs that I’m blaming.”

“I think you’ve been giving those drugs too much credit for things lately,” Jack growled. “I’m giving you five more days because I know you’re injured. Then you’re going cold turkey off those Vicodin. You can use Aleve or Advil or something.”

“Damn, Jack,” Aaron complained. “I’m not getting hooked on painkillers. You can relax about it.”

“It’s not hooked I’m worried about,” Jack said. “You’ve got to start thinking clearly if you’re going to go to work for a Congresswoman.”

“Whoa,” Adele said. “What’s this about?”

“Aaron took a new job this week. He has no idea what he’s going to get paid, where he’s working, or what his hours will be. He just needs to get clear-headed before he meets his new boss again.”

The joshing was all good-natured, but Aaron had to admit that Jack had a point. He needed to get his head clear before he met with Pol again. He’d take Jack’s advice and start weaning himself off the painkillers as best he could. As if to contradict him, his side started aching again.

Saturday morning Aaron went to Mike’s Subaru dealership. He parked the rental and strolled around outside looking at cars and stickers before he went into the showroom. There were balloons everywhere and a ten-foot inflatable gorilla sat on top of the awning out front. Mike was just rolling a hot-dog cart out of the back and waved at Aaron. He left the cart where it was and came over to him.

“Good to see you Aaron,” he said shaking hands.

“What’s the occasion?” Aaron asked pointing at all the balloons and the cart.

“It’s Saturday,” Mike answered. “You have to make your own occasion. We’ve got Jim Jerrol from WLOL coming out to broadcast live for two hours this afternoon. That will draw people. We always have hotdogs, popcorn, coffee, and soft drinks available on Saturdays. People seem to expect it and get downright mad if you don’t have something to keep the kids occupied while they test-drive a car three grades higher than the one they’ll actually buy. It’s a crazy business.”

“Well, maybe it would be better if I come back during the week instead of on Saturday.”

“No, no. I’ve got you covered today. I’ve got a new salesperson who needs an easy sale to get started. I promised her you,” Mike answered. “Janice!” he yelled. Janice Linefelter nee Annabelle Monroe came out of the back and waved at Aaron. “Actually, she insisted that I let her help you. She has quite the stubborn streak, I’ll tell you.”

“Hi, Aaron,” Janice smiled as she approached. They shook hands warmly. “I hope you’re ready to spend some money. I promised Mike that I wouldn’t give the shop away on my first day.”

“It’s good to see you, Janice,” Aaron laughed. “You’re going to have to tell me all about how this came to be. I didn’t really imagine you to be the used car salesman type.”

“You mean sleazy like me,” Mike said. “Look, we’ve got over 200 used cars on the lot. Find him one he likes, Janice.” Mike returned to his hotdog cart and Janice focused in on Aaron.

“So, can I interest you in a new Outback?” she asked.

“Too rich for my blood,” Aaron responded. “I’ve been driving the same car for thirty years, I’m not needing anything new.”

“I was really shocked to hear about your accident,” Janice remarked. “I’m glad to see you aren’t injured.”

“Don’t tell that to my ribs. They remind me how much I’m injured every time I inhale.”

“Well, tell me,” Janice asked, “how much did you have in mind spending? I’ve been studying the inventory all morning.”

“$7,604.29,” Aaron responded.

“Is that an absolute or a range?” Janice asked laughing.

“Well, that’s how much I got from the insurance settlement. I could add a couple thou to that if I saw something that really appealed to me.” Janice cocked one eyebrow.

“Hmmm. Well, let’s see what Mike has on the lot. Did you see anything that appealed to you while you were kicking tires?” They proceeded out into the parking lot and checked several vehicles. Finally they came to a 2000 Forrester. “This might be a good one to try on,” Janice suggested looking at the clipboard in her hand. “Five years old, low mileage. New snowtires. Sounds like you could use that.”

“Only driven on Sundays by a little old lady?” Aaron quipped.

“Yeah. Some lady named Andretti.” They both laughed. Aaron had great feelings of respect for this woman from the first that they met, but you had to admit that she was fast on the comebacks.

“Well, let’s take a look at it. I hear that I’m too old to be driving a sports car, but women won’t like it if I have a boring car either. They want stable but adventurous according to my source. Do you think this will fit the bill?” Aaron was enjoying this interaction of being able to deal with Janice when he wasn’t working. He had to remind himself that she was.

“Let’s get the keys and see if it fits your image of yourself,” she said. “That’s what will really count.”

Half an hour later they pulled back into car lot. Aaron liked the car and enjoyed Janice’s company. They sat talking in the car for several minutes before Aaron finally asked what the total price would come to.

“We are not going to dicker around and make deals, or call in sales managers, or whatever else they do in this business,” Janice said. “Mike said to make you the best deal, so I borrowed the stock list from his desk before we came out.” She pulled out her clipboard. “This sheet is the one that the sales people are given with the bottom line prices that they can go,” she explained. “Then if they can’t get a deal, the call in a sales manager. I don’t have a sales manager sheet, but my guess is that it is like this one but has another column here that says how low the sales manager can go before he calls in Mike to close the deal. This is Mike’s list. See here is the column for the Sales Manager and then there’s the one marked Cost. That’s actually Mike’s bottom line and sometimes he’ll go below that if he wants to reduce inventory and doesn’t mind taking a loss on a couple vehicles that are hard to move. I figure if we just use the number from his column, he can’t say anything but that we made a good deal and congratulations.”

“You’re devious,” Aaron said. “I don’t want to cheat Mike or get you into trouble.”

“I have found out so much about this business in two days you would not believe it,” Janice replied. “Believe me, I know that this is not cheating anyone. $8,900 and it’s yours.”

“Okay. It seems too easy. No strings attached?” Aaron asked.

“Well yes, one,” Janice replied.

“Yes?”

“You can take me to dinner tonight. At someplace at least one step above Don Hall’s.”

“Hmmm. I don’t know of anyplace like that that has a child’s menu,” Aaron quipped.

“No child’s menu, no seniors menu.”

“Okay. You’re on. Let’s avoid the clowns and hotdogs and sign the papers.”

Chapter Seven A: Mad

2005-11-12T20:18:00.000-08:00

By Friday, Aaron felt well enough to call Enterprise and have a car delivered to his home. He was gradually cutting down on the number of Vicodin that he was taking and while the pain sometimes woke him up, in general he was sleeping more peacefully. He and Jack had used the time to research the issues and positions that were likely to come up in this year’s Congressional Races. They pulled copies of the Congressional Record for the past four years, looking up every vote for how Pol had voted, all her speeches, and all bills that had her name attached to them. When Aaron walked into her offices in February he wanted to be ready for whatever they threw at him.

“I think you’ve got a winner here,” Jack commented at one point. Aaron had to agree. He was actually becoming excited about getting back into the political foray.

“I’m a little worried,” Aaron said, “but I have to admit that this is beginning to feel like the seventies.”

“Calm your heart, boy,” Jack interjected. “You are keeping this to strictly business. She’s got a good platform that you can work on with a clear conscience. And we get an insider in Congress. We can parlay that kind of information into a lot of cash.”

“We’re going to have to discuss that seriously,” Aaron said. “I don’t want to be caught in anything that would damage her success.”

“Never asking for leaks or illegal info—just a resource.”

Aaron wasn’t completely satisfied with the answer and vowed to get a concrete agreement with Jack before he started work in earnest. For now, however, he was finding Jack’s meticulous care in parsing the obscure Congressional Record to separate issues from commendations for turning 100 and resolutions supporting the goals and ideals of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Awareness Month.

When Aaron got his car, he had to quash a sudden urge to drive straight back out to the church to investigate further. But instead he began driving around to various car dealerships to shop for a car. He didn’t bother to test drive anything, but determined from his first survey that it would not be a new car. No matter what he had in banks on foreign soil, it wouldn’t due to be seen to be outspending his income. But that Mercedes SLK280 Roadster was sweet—especially the red one. Damn, he thought. I’m thinking like a teenage boy… or girl. At any rate, a $45,000 price tag was way out of range for what he was willing and able to pay. Besides which, he was 56 years old and should probably consider something more sensible for a change. He had to admit, he’d complained about the Fiat every year since he moved back to Indiana, and that had been a long time to nurse an image that he’d outgrown already by that time.

When he had nearly exhausted himself kicking tires, he looked at his watch and suddenly realized that he had not cancelled his appointment with Aunt Hattie. It was 2:30—he could still make it. He headed south and pulled into the parking lot at Warren Memorial Home at just 3:00. He grabbed his bag and ran up to Hattie’s room, took a deep breath and winced from the accumulated pain, then knocked.

“Who’s there?” came the voice from inside. It sounded strangely querulous. Aaron answered and the voice responded, “Come in.” He’d no more that opened the door when Hattie declared, “You’re late. I’d given up on you coming today. Thought I’d been stood up.” Aaron glanced at his watch. It was 3:05.

“I’m so sorry, Aunt Hattie. I didn’t mean to cause you alarm. I have been shopping for a new car and lost track of time,” Aaron said.

“It doesn’t suit you,” Hattie declared.

“I try not to be late for appointments. I’m sorry.”

“I mean the car.”

“What?” Hattie pointed out the window to the parking lot. Aaron could see the rental car from here. She’d been watching and seen him pull up. What a cagey old lady!

“That’s a rental car.” Aaron explained.

“What’s wrong with your little yellow sports car?” Hattie asked.

“I was in an accident,” Aaron answered, getting Hattie and himself settled in their chairs. He really didn’t want to get into how he came to be in an accident. “My car didn’t fare as well as I did, I’m afraid.”

“Well, you’re too old for a sports car anyway. A girl wants to see some stability in her man.” Hattie glanced toward the window again. “But she doesn’t want him to be boring,” she concluded with a sniff.” Aaron started the recording.

“Harper had a car, you know,” Hattie continued. Her voice had returned to its sweet mellifluous tone and Aaron had to assume that he was at least temporarily forgiven. “Oh yes. It was a Roadster. The first time I saw it was on that Saturday morning after the dance when I met him at Twelve Oaks.” With those few words, Hattie was transported back into the 1920s. She was lost in reverie and Aaron let himself become lost in her words. They were better than pain-killers.

“You might think it was terribly naughty of me to sneak off to meet my beau in the woods,” Hattie continued. “And you would be right, of course. Oh, I knew exactlywhat I was doing, and I knew what I wanted. When I got to the old church after I’d finished my chores, I knew he’d be there waiting for me. But I was very surprised when I saw the bright shiny new car parked in front of the church. There was no one around the car, so I went around back of the church to the circle of Oaks. All twelve were still standing back then. I don’t know how many there are left now. I remember three of them falling while I lived on the family farm.

“Well, sure enough, there he was, sitting with his back against an old tree. He had a huge coat spread out under him and had a ukulele on his knee strumming. He looked like a picture in the Ladies Home Journal that Mama always subscribed to. And he was singing. Not the silly little ditties that all the kids new and were the first thing that anyone who could get a ukulele learned to play. He was singing beautiful music. Almost like a hymn but it wasn’t really religious. He sang of home and love and peace.

“I was enrapt. I walked right over to him and settled down on the coat next to him without a word. I thought he might try to take advantage of me, I was so mesmerized by his singing. At least I convinced myself that being seduced by the music would be as good an excuse as any.” Aaron was certain that he saw the color rise in her cheeks as she spoke of this. She had been a naughty girl!

“Well,” Hattie went on, after taking a sip of Sherry, “I needn’t have worried. When he finished the song he turned to me and said, ‘Sing with me Mattilda’ just like that. No one called me Hattie back in those days, of course, because it was before I went mad,” Hattie confided. “Well, I was too embarrassed to sing, but he kept coaxing me and chiding me. Finally I let out a few notes and he started strumming “Banks of the Wabash” and it was so pretty, I just started singing and singing. He’d coach me a little here and there. ‘Breathe from your stomach,’ he’d say. But he’d eventually get me to sing out and sing softly and sing loudly and with an English accent, all sorts of ways.”

“Can you sing for me now, Aunt Hattie?” Aaron asked cautiously. She didn’t answer, but her mouth began to move and the whispered notes gradually became louder as she got into the song. Her voice was old, but sweet and mellow, not ragged. Aaron could hear what a beautiful voice she must once have had. In some ways, perhaps it was more beautiful now than it had ever been.

'Round my Indiana homesteads wave the cornfields, In the distance loom the woodlands clear and cool. Oftentimes my thoughts revert to scenes of childhood, Where I first received my lessons, nature's school. But one thing there is missing in the picture, Without her face it seems so incomplete. I long to see my mother in the doorway, As she stood there years ago, her boy to greet. Oh, the moonlight's fair tonight along the Wabash, From the fields there comes the breath of newmown hay. Through the sycamores the candle lights are gleaming, On the banks of the Wabash, far away. Many years have passed since I strolled by the river, Arm in arm, with sweetheart Mary by my side, It was there I tried to tell her that I loved her, It was there I begged of her to be my bride. Long years have passed since I strolled thro' the churchyard. She's sleeping there, my angel, Mary dear, I loved her, but she thought I didn't mean it, Still I'd give my future were she only here.

The refrain died down at last “On the banks of the Wabash far away.” Hattie smiled at Aaron. “I don’t often have an audience these days,” she said.

“Are you a professional singer?” Aaron asked.

“Well, I was. Now that you can put in past tense because no one pays to hear this old voice any more,” Hattie laughed. “I would meet Harper up at the Twelve Oaks every Saturday morning all that summer and he would teach me more about singing. Said I could be a professional, or maybe go into musical drama if I weren’t afraid of what people would say. You know people thought any girl in the theatre was a loose woman back then. I’d have to say I didn’t do much to improve the image,” she chuckled again.

“Every Saturday after we’d sung, and snuggled a bit under the Oaks, Harper would take me for a drive in the Studebaker. What fun we would have riding with the top down and singing as he sped down the road leaving a dust cloud behind us. Every Saturday night when I got home and he drove off, my brothers would rush out to try to catch a glimpse of him. They would question me about my behavior and I would assure them that I was quite capable of taking care of myself, thank you. They’d given up their rights to look after me that time I fell in the creek and Harper saved me. One Saturday he took me all the way up into Fort Wayne and we went to a club where he made me get up and sing. I wasn’t sure about it, but he played the piano, too, and I just felt when I was with him that I could do anything.

“Well, I was hooked,” she said flatly. “Once I’d sung for a crowd of people, I knew that I’d be singing for audiences all my life. The applause! Oh it was wonderful! By August, I have to tell you, we were spending the weekend in Fort Wayne and I was singing for tips and earning good money for a girl in the Twenties. Oh, there were plenty who wanted me to give them special favors, but there was always Harper there to protect me and to be with me. And, well, if there were special favors to be given, there was no question in my mind who would get them.” Aaron was certain he saw her blush slightly again.

“One day while we were up a the Oaks, Harper said ‘Let’s not go into town tonight, Mattilda. Let’s just stay here in this circle of old trees and look at the sky through those leaves before they turn color and fall off.” And that’s just what we did. We lay out there on a blanket under the trees and he held me till long after dark. The stars came out and he’d tell me stories about them.

“’See that star at the top of the cluster that looks like a dog-ear?’ he’d say. ‘There’s a planet that circles that star that is all one living breathing organism. It thinks it’s the most beautiful planet in the galaxy, it’s so vain. But I have to say, Mattilda, it’s about the only thing in the universe that has a voice as pretty as yours. A little deeper of course,’ he laughed.

“’Oh, and is that the planet you come from, Harper,’ I asked. ‘No dear,’ he said, ‘I’ve only visited there. I was on my way to eBlaksia which is over there just south of the big dipper a bit. Her star is a pretty faint one, but you can make it out just below the handle there. She is a naughty little planet. If we ever get her out of adolescence it will be a miracle.’”

“Harper must have been a great story-teller,” Aaron smiled.

“Oh yes. He would tell me stories of all the different worlds he’d visited and why he’d gone. Usually it was just to carry messages from one of his people to another, but sometimes he actually had adventures of his own. I so miss Harper.”

“Were you together long?” Aaron asked.

“It seemed like forever, but it was just that one summer. He was telling me that he had to go and I’d never see him again. But he had to do it in his own way.

“He said, ‘Mattilda, I’ve been so many places that I can’t even begin to describe them to you. But here I’ve found out what it means when it says the daughter’s of Adam are the most beautiful. I’ve lost my heart to you, dearie.’ Isn’t that sweet? I always called him dearie, too. But he said that night that when he was gone that all I’d ever have to do was sing and he’d hear me. He’d be right next to me. So I set my mind to become a professional singer right then, so he’d never be able to leave me.

“But he left that fall.” She cut herself off abruptly and Aaron thought he could hear her repeating the refrain of her song one more time.

“Do you know where he went?” If Harper was still alive somewhere, Aaron thought he could find him. What better gift could he give this charming old lady.

“They say he died,” Hattie said. “One Saturday morning I was delayed because it was raining so hard I couldn’t see my way through the woods. I never let Harper pick me up at home because my brothers were so nosy. As I was struggling up the hill toward the Twelve Oaks, I was knocked to the ground by a deafening thunder clap from a bolt of lightning just over the rise. I couldn’t hear for a while. I was absolutely stunned. When I collected myself, I ran to the Twelve Oaks. One of the trees was down, split completely in half by the bolt of lightning. I didn’t see Harper, so I ran around the trees calling his name. When I reached the smoldering trunk of the tree, I saw his body under the limb.

“I suppose I went a little berserk. I couldn’t lift the limb so I ran to the car, parked in its usual spot. I had never driven it, but I’d watched Harper drive often enough. Well, to make a long story short, I got it moving forward and sped back to my home. I nearly ran over the chickens that were too slow getting out of my way as I splashed through the mud. And I couldn’t remember how to stop, so I just turned it off and let it run into Mama’s rose trellis. My brothers and father came rushing out and I could hardly speak but told them Harper was hurt up at the Twelve. They tossed me in the back of the Studebaker and piled in around me. I never knew my father could drive, but he got the car back up to Twelve Oaks. He and my brothers ran to the tree and lifted it off Harper, but it was too late. He was gone.

“I still don’t remember much after that point except the funeral at that church. During the service I’m sure I saw Harper get up and leave through the front of the building—right through the stained glass window.” She trailed off remembering.

“I’ve been up there, Aunt Hattie,” Aaron said quietly. “It’s a strange place, that church.”

Hattie’s eyes suddenly cleared and she looked directly at Aaron. “Oh, dearie,” she said brightly. “That’s not a church, that’s their spaceship.”

Chapter Six D: Employed

2005-11-11T12:22:00.000-08:00

Aaron and Jack stayed seated as the auditorium emptied and only a few die-hard glad-handers were left clustered around the podium. They watched as the Congresswoman dispatched an aide and excused herself from the small crowd to make her way toward the two men at the back of the auditorium. Jack and Aaron rose as she approached.

“Aaron, I’m so glad you came all this way,” she said in greeting. “How are your injuries?”

“Thank you Congresswoman,” Aaron said shaking her hand gingerly. “Still pretty tender, I’m afraid. But enough drugs keep the pain at bay. May I present my good friend and long-time mentor, Dr. Jack Diggory?” He introduced Jack to Pol.

“Dr. Diggory of Indiana University?” Pol asked immediately. “I read your treatise on socio-political activism of the sixties when I was studying at Georgetown. I have to say you influenced my own views. I hope I didn’t give you any regrets when I spoke today.”

“Regrets that I’m not thirty years younger,” Jack responded. “That was a fine, if not very politically advantageous speech you gave today. I’m glad Aaron dragged me all the way down here. It was worth every mile.”

“Political advantage comes in strange forms sometimes,” Pol answered. “With the sudden disfavor of our current administration after the handling of the country’s and the world’s natural disasters and the mounting death toll in Iraq, we find the people suddenly much more willing to hear questions than they were four, even two years ago.”

“Well, if this gathering was typical, you have the makings of a small multitude of followers,” Jack responded. “I think you won my young friend over.”

“I am very impressed,” Aaron said. “I almost think you might have the right thinking that an old hippie could get behind with a clear conscience.”

“I wouldn’t over emphasize my age if I were you,” Pol responded. “What you consider age, we highly prize as experience. Have you considered what I suggested when we last met?” Pol, not certain of how much Aaron had confided in Jack did not want to be overly explicit in her question—something that Aaron recognized as quickly as Jack did.

“I’ve brought a resume if you’d like to peruse it. If there is a place on your staff for an old… for a man with experience, I’d like to interview for the position.”

“Why not do the interview on the way to the airport?” Pol asked suddenly. “Would it be imposing on you too much if I asked you to drive my chief of staff to the airport while I drive Aaron, Dr. Diggory? We can trade partners at the rental lot.”

“I have no objections. Aaron, are you willing to let a U.S. Representative drive you to the airport?” Jack asked.

Things had suddenly gone into an accelerated motion for Aaron. He wasn’t sure if it was the drugs, or just the suddenness of the Representative’s suggestion. He’d expected this to take a long time, not to interview at once.

“Who am I to argue with the government?” Aaron asked.

“Merely a public servant,” Pol smiled. They headed outside and Pol approached a black sedan at the curb. “Nina, I have a guest that I need to talk to in private. I’d like to take the car to the airport. Dr. Diggory will be happy to give you a ride. You may know him or know of him. His works were required reading when I was in school.”

“All right, but you’re sure you want to drive in this rain? I’d be happy to drive while you talk in the back,” Nina suggested. She did not like being relegated to “getting a ride” with a stranger, no matter who he was. Diggory? She didn’t remember reading any of his work. Probably way outdated by now.

“No, not this time. This is a matter that is strictly between the two of us at the moment,” Pol assured her. “I’m sure you and Mr. Case will get an opportunity to chat at another time, however.” Nina raised an eyebrow at Aaron. She didn’t know that Pol had any boyfriends back home and had certainly never heard of a Mr. Case. She really needed to talk to Pol about keeping her better informed about her personal life. First Mr. Jasper and now this guy. Pol sure collected them old. Maybe this was another uncle.

“Very well, if you are certain,” Nina acquiesced in her best DC manner. “Dr. Diggory, I’m Nina Patterson, Congresswoman Stamos’s Chief of Staff. Could I impose on you for a lift to the airport?”

“I’d be delighted Ms. Patterson,” Jack returned. “My car is just in the second row over there. Shall we lead to the airport, Congresswoman?”

“That would be great Dr. Diggory. Please keep me under the speed limit. When I’m engaged in stimulating conversation, I tend to get heavy footed,” Pol laughed. There it was again, Aaron thought. If she had just stood up at the front of the auditorium and laughed, every person in there would have followed her wherever she led. Most of them probably would now as well. Jack and Nina left for Jack’s car and Pol and Aaron slid into the black sedan. In just a moment Jack pulled past them and Pol slid into traffic behind him. As soon as they were on the highway she turned half her attention on Aaron.

“Well, now that we are alone, Aaron, tell me what you really thought about the speech this afternoon,” she said.

“Congresswoman there is very little I could add to it,” Aaron began.

“Please, when we are alone call me Pol. There are few people I can just chat with and I’d rather not call you Mr. Case all the time.”

“That’s a little difficult, but I’ll try, Pol,” Aaron answered. “One is trained to respond in specific ways to the office.”

“Right now, respond to me as a new friend,” Pol suggested. “There will be time enough to be formal. Now about the speech.”

“Yes. Well, if you don’t mind my being blunt, it sounded as though you were kicking off a campaign,” Aaron said. “Don’t get me wrong, it was a good and inspiring speech. It might stick with some of those students past dinner.”

“That good?”

“Definitely,” Aaron replied honestly. “But you left no doubt in anyone’s mind as to where you stand on issues of the environment, race relations, or the war. That is not usually common in a political speech unless you are preparing to differentiate yourself from a potential opponent, or to take the high ground before one can be identified.”

“Do you approve?”

“Not my place to approve or disapprove,” Aaron answered, “but I’d vote for you, and I’d hate to be your opponent. It’s not so much the issues that you bring up, but how you say things. In one moment you can shock a person into silence and the next buoy him up with laughter. I’ve not seen that kind of charisma in a leader in a long time.”

“Well, I’m not really a leader in the grander scope of things,” Pol said. “But it is more important to me that the message was right than that I spoke it winningly. I was concerned that I wasn’t clear on some things.”

“Like what office you are running for.”

“Well, it is a little early to start anything major, but it is an election year and I’ll need to win a third term in congress if I’m going to get anything done,” Pol said.

“Yes. You also need to be in a position of strength when you run for governor in two years,” Aaron tossed out. Pol was startled and turned in her seat to look at Aaron who motioned back at the road in front of her. They rode in silence for a mile. Finally, Pol broke the silence.

“You understand that it would be damaging if that information leaked out to the public before we were ready to actually start a campaign, don’t you?” she asked quietly.

“No one will hear it from me until after you have made a public announcement,” Aaron responded.

“I think we understand each other well,” Pol said.

“There are a few questions,” Aaron began.

“This is an extraordinary thing to ask,” Pol said, “but I’m going to ask you to simply trust me on those questions at the moment. I can assure you that my ethics when placed under your tightest scrutiny will pass muster. For now, I’m going to ask you to simply accept that. I am going to need an experienced press relations manager to keep my campaign focused on the House of Representatives race and not let inappropriate information reach the public.”

“You have my resume,” Aaron said. It was as close as he was going to come to asking her for a job.

“I know what is on your resume,” Pol said. “What I need to know is if you will join me. I’ve already made you the job offer.”

“Congresswoman Stamos… Pol, I would be pleased to manage your press relations,” Aaron answered her. “However, I have to say that I’m not fit to work at the moment. This was a heavy day for me and I’m already feeling the need for a painkiller, no matter how excited I am to be back in the thick of things. Do we need to start immediately? I need to come up to speed on the issues and political landscape for your district anyway.”

“Aaron, you need to be fully recovered before we start working together. I’d suggest you take the rest of this month and the first part of next month to recover, research, and wrap up any business that you currently have pending. I’ll be coming back home for President’s Day in February. I’ll plan on an extra day or two to get us on the same page, then have you come back to Washington to meet the rest of the staff. Most of your work, of course will be back here and not as part of my Congressional staff.”

“That suits me well,” Aaron said.

“Then welcome aboard,” Pol smiled. They were approaching the airport exit and Pol followed Jack toward the Hertz rental lot.

“I wanted to thank you as well for contacting my insurance agent for me,” Aaron mentioned. “I hadn’t even thought about that yet when he arrived at my door.”

“Oh, when I gathered up your briefcase and cell phone to bring to you, I thought I’d check real quickly to see if there was anything else of value that shouldn’t be left in your car. That was when I thought of your insurance. When I saw the name of your agent I realized that he was an old friend of my father’s, so I just went ahead and called him. I meant to mention it when I brought your things by. Did they treat you well?”

“They treated me as though someone very important had told them they’d better. I’ve never seen an insurance claim handled in quite that manner before,” Aaron said.

“You’re getting a lot of assurances from me,” Pol said, “but for what it is worth, I didn’t apply any pressure.”

“I’m sure your name was enough,” Aaron said. “I just wanted to thank you.”

They walked out of the rental lot and joined Jack and Aaron in Jack’s little car.

“Sorry about the cramped quarters,” Jack said as they crawled in the back seat. “But we’ll get you right over to departures and it will be quicker than waiting for the shuttle bus.”

“That’s wonderful, Dr. Diggory. I trust that you and Nina had a good conversation on your way over.”

“Oh yes,” Jack said. “It seems that Washington has changed again since I retired as a professor. But the more it changes, the more it stays the same.” Nina was silent for a moment as Jack turned onto the entry ramp to the airport departures.

“We will have just enough time that you can make the call to Senator Bayh before we board for our flight,” she said to Pol.

“I’d nearly forgotten that,” Pol responded. “You are such a life-saver, Nina. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” She knew Nina was unhappy and needed to be re-affirmed in her value to Pol. It was cruel to simply assign her to a strange place without an explanation, but it couldn’t be helped this time. They got out of the car and set their overnight bags on the curb. Aaron came around the car to get in the front seat where Nina had been riding.

“Oh, before we leave, I wanted to introduce you to each other,” Pol said turning to Nina and Aaron. “Nina, this is Aaron Case. Aaron, my chief of staff, Nina Patterson. You’ll be hearing from her often, I think. Nina, Mr. Case has just agreed to become my new press relations manager for the campaign.” Nina looked shocked and stammered for a moment.

“But I… I have…” She caught herself short. This couldn’t be happening to her. Martin was to be her puppet on the campaign staff. She turned to Aaron and smiled a cold and harsh smile. “Pleased to meet you Mr. Case,” she said. “I’ll get things set up for you as soon as I’m back in DC. Welcome aboard.” She hadn’t learned grace and deportment for nothing. She’d take care of him later.

“Well, good-bye, now,” Pol called. “Thank you Dr. Diggory. I hope we’ll see you again soon.” In a flash Pol and Nina had turned toward the airport check-in and entered the terminal. Aaron slid back into the car and Jack pulled away from the airport.

“I need a coffee shop and a pill,” Aaron said as he leaned back in the seat. Jack didn’t push him, but headed for the nearest truckstop.

Chapter Six C: Leadership

2005-11-10T12:38:00.000-08:00

It wasn’t the kind of speech that historians would record as “notable” in the launching of a politician’s climb to fame. In fact, Pol was a little embarrassed that this was her first public address after the exhortation of the architect to lead, guide, and inspire. Hamilton Hall on the Franklin College Campus was small and the audience was mostly students who had various pressures to attend the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Challenge. Her speech was part of the Leadership Lecture Series and was expected to have a certain degree of scholarly dryness to it. It was, after all, referred to as a lecture.

But there was also a scattering of local townspeople, news reporters, and faculty in the room, and as Pol scanned the audience from her seat as she awaited the introduction, she saw Aaron case and an older gentleman slip into the room and gingerly sit near the back. He must still be hurting from the accident, she thought. It is amazing that he made the trip down here in his condition. But she had been confident that he would. Her speech—her lecture—was prepared for him. This was her opportunity to close the deal.

“…the Honorable Congresswoman Polyhymnia Stamos, representing the sixth Congressional District of the State of Indiana. Congresswoman Stamos.” The professor introducing her stood aside from the podium and Pol stepped up smiling.

“Thank you Dr. Pribush,” Pol began. This was almost like addressing the Daughters of the American Revolution in their speech contest when she was in high school. You had to remember who you were addressing. “President Mosely, Faculty, Students, Members of the Press, and friends of Franklin College, it is an honor to be selected as this year’s speaker for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Challenge. I like the ring of that, for there is one thing that Dr. King did more than anything else, and that was to challenge. He challenged the people of his generation and the people of my generation, and the people of your generation.

“I ask for a show of hands with some trepidation. I’m not a comedian and it seems like that is their standard, but I’d like those of you who were born after the death of Dr. King in 1969 to raise your hands.” Most of the attendees raised their hands, including several professors. “Very good,” Pol continued. “Why are you here?”

The question was abrupt and caught people off guard. They began to shift and look at each other.

“Why are you here to memorialize a man that can be no more real to you than Abraham Lincoln or Woodrow Wilson. If this talk were the Thomas Jefferson Leadership Challenge, would you be sitting here? But Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and Thomas Jefferson were all great leaders. Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence. Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery. Woodrow Wilson advanced the concept of the League of Nations to put an end to world strife. But none of them have their own national holiday. We lump them all together under President’s Day. But Martin Luther King Jr., who held no public office and who died before most of you were born has a holiday and a leadership challenge lecture that you sponsor academically and attend emotionally. Why are you here?”

Pol gave a small smile and looked around at the room in good humor for a moment, then continued somewhat sheepishly.

“I’m sorry. I forgot that the first rule of public speaking for a politician is to start with a joke and get the audience loosened up,” she said. There was a spattering of relieved laughter around the room. “If the audience throws tomatoes in the first five minutes, then they have nothing to look forward to.” More relaxed laughter. “Well, bear with me. Those who have heard me speak before can ascertain that it gets much worse the longer I go.” Now the audience shifted in their seats to a more comfortable position.

“But I wonder, why are you here?” Pol removed the wireless microphone from the stand and began to move down the steps from the dais to the front row of listeners. She stopped in front of a man she estimated to be roughly her own age. “Are you a faculty-member here at Franklin?” She asked him. “Yes,” he answered. “Why are you here?”

“Dr. King had a profound impact on our lives today,” the professor responded. “This is an opportunity to relive some of that cultural change and become inspired to take it forward.”

“That’s a great answer. What subject do you teach?”

“Sociology.”

“Thank you.” Pol moved up the aisle and spoke to a young woman. “Why are you here?”

“It was required for my history class,” she grinned at Pol as if having given her a very smart answer.

“You get an A for attendance,” Pol smiled back. She continued to move up the aisle asking the same question to random people. The answers became more thoughtful as she went.

“To learn about something I’ve had no experience with.”

“To hear a U.S. Representative speak.”

“To honor a great leader.”

Pol approached the back row where Aaron was seated and repeated her question to him. She held the microphone toward him and he looked directly into her eyes.

“I came to find out why you think it is all worth it, and how you think it could be different,” he said to her. She smiled at him and without raising the mic to her own lips quietly said “Thank you.” She made her way back to the podium before she resumed her speech. There was a shuffle as people shifted in their seats waiting. At last she stood erect and faced them.

“John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, icons of the 1960s all died before I was ten years old. They all died as martyrs. They all died for what they believed in. So did Mohamed Atta and Marwan al Shehhi. You may not recognize those names. They were the men who flew American flight 11 and United flight 175 into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

“What is so great about dying for what you believe in?” The room was silent. Pol looked around at the audience intently before continuing.

“What is a mystery to me is that all these men had noble beliefs. Oh, understand, I know the difference between a self-sacrificer and a murderer. I make no justifications for the acts of terrorists, nor do I denigrate the lives of the Kennedys and King by comparison. What I am asking you is what makes a belief worth dying for, and you must answer as well the question, what makes a cause worth killing for and dying for?

“Over two hundred fifty U.S. soldiers have died in Afghanistan and over twenty-one hundred in Iraq since the first declaration of war in March of 2002. Two thousand seven hundred fifty two died in the World Trade Center. Those are the numbers. You are smart people, draw some conclusions.

“Here is your Martin Luther King Jr. Day Challenge: Stop dying for what you believe in and start living for it. If we want the world to adopt our form of democratic government, and make no mistake, that is a stated goal of our involvement in the middle east, then we are going to have to show the world why it is better than any other kind of government in the world. That evidence has to be something besides the ability to buy more video games. It has to be based on something other than rabid consumerism. It needs to be based on an active desire to improve the conditions of the world in which we live. We can only show how good it is by caring for those around us. I don’t just mean giving cash to relief funds, though we need that badly enough with the natural disasters that we’ve seen this year. I mean that we need to make good decisions on how we use our natural resources. We need to support farmers in Brazil so they don’t need to destroy our the world’s rainforests in order to get what we have. As long as the world is divided into haves and have nots, the have nots there will be people dying for what they believe and killing for it as well.”

“There is no cause being served by our young men and women dying, no matter how willing to die for what they believe they are. And I would plant that message in the heart of Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, India, China, and Russia. But it won’t take root unless it grows first in Indianapolis, Washington, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and Houston. If we would let freedom ring throughout the world, then we need to show that people can live in peace and prosperity in the free portions of the world.

“That was the message of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The people of this country must accept each other before they can hope to be accepted as leaders of the world. Though it becomes a cliché, I will dare to repeat that a leader goes in front of those he or she leads. It is the slaver who drives people forward with a whip from behind.” Pol’s speech was not over, but Aaron had been won from the beginning. She took harsh words and brought them to people who didn’t want to hear them in a way that made them glad they had heard them. He was pretty sure there hadn’t been a speech writer putting these things together. No Washington speech writer at least. It had come from the heart and he was convinced. Live for what you believe. He was ready.

As the audience stood in applause Aaron saw a figure move up the aisle to his left. A heavy man in a pin-striped suit. Aaron flipped open his cell phone and snapped a picture. It wasn’t good, but he saved it anyway. It was too weird.

Chapter Six B: Investigation

2005-11-09T21:34:00.000-08:00

“I’m telling you, Jack, I saw something in that church that I can’t explain,” Aaron was saying to his friend as they left Fort Wayne and headed south on I-69. “I can’t tell you exactly how I know right now, but I’m sure there was more going on in there than me looking for help.”

“Well, I could tell you that much,” answered Jack. “There were a lot more voices in there than yours sounding delirious, but we couldn’t identify anything that was being said. We finally decided that it was just an echo that was playing havoc with the reception.”

“I want to go back and investigate,” Aaron insisted.

“Look, it’s bad enough that you convinced me to drive you all the way down to Franklin. But you really aren’t in any condition to go plowing around out in the country looking for clues.”

“We’re almost there. Take the next exit.” Aaron’s command was so sharp and specific that Jack was in the exit lane before he realized that Aaron was maneuvering him out to the old church.

“All right, we’ll drive by, and then get right back on the road again. Just to satisfy your memory of where the accident occurred,” Jack condescended. “Pour me a cup of coffee out of that thermos, will you? It’s colder than hell out today.” Snow had begun to flurry out of the gray skies. It could be a big storm, but they’d run out of it quickly enough as they headed south. It wouldn’t take long to go the eight miles out of the way to get to the church. Aaron directed Jack through Uniondale and out onto County Road N100W.

“The problem is,” Aaron was explaining, “I’m having trouble separating what I dreamt from what I remember. I mean, I had a doozy of a dream last night. But just seeing the place and retracing my steps into the church will help me set the memory straight. Turn at that next corner and head up the hill. Take it easy ‘cause when you come out of the shelter of these trees the wind gusts will rock you.”

Jack approached the top of the hill cautiously and when the windbreak ceased, the wind whistled across the road. It was already tossing up drifts from the snow since the last plow had been through.

“This is the place!” Aaron said excitedly. “I’m sure of it. I hit that telephone pole. At least I think that was the place.” Jack drove slowly past the scene, but there was no sign of the accident of just three days ago. Between the new snow and the wind, the ditch was drifted in erasing all trace of Aaron’s spinning slide down the embankment. “Pull into the church lot up there, but don’t get stuck,” Aaron directed. Jack slid slightly as he made the turn into what had to be called the parking lot. If it were all cleared off, he thought, you might be able to park a dozen cars in front of the little stone building.

Aaron opened his door and gingerly let himself out of the car, testing his footing carefully. One thing he did not want was to slip and fall out here. Jack was too old to be picking him up off the ice. He stood for a moment in front of the church looking at the door. He looked back the direction of where he had gone over the embankment, struggling to relive every step to the door. Even the pain in his ribs was intensifying as he remembered his struggle up the steps.

Aaron stepped forward to open the church door. It was locked. Locked. Why would it be locked now when it was standing wide open Friday night? Unless someone else had been there. He wanted to go around to the other side of the church where he could clearly see large oak trees, but the snow on the side of the building was drifted and he hadn’t worn boots; nor was he in any condition to be struggling through drifts. This was one investigation that might have to wait until spring. He made his way slowly back to the car.

Jack was down the hill a ways near where Aaron said he’d gone off the road. He saw Aaron getting in the car and made his way back. When he slid into the driver’s seat Aaron already had a steaming cup of coffee clutched between his hands sipping. He was shivering. Jack started the car and turned the heat up full blast.

“Are you sure this is the right place, son?” Jack asked cautiously. “There is no sign of an accident down there. And there are little churches scattered all over this county, you know. Maybe you were off a little.”

“Jack, I wasn’t injured when I drove out here. This is the place. That is the church.”

“Well what did you find out?”

“Nothing. The door was locked.”

They drove away from the church and headed back to the highway in silence. Jack needed both hands on the wheel now and focused on getting through the increasing snow-fall. By the time they reached Muncie the snow had dissolved into rain and Jack began to relax a little though he still drove cautiously. Cars and trucks sped by him on the left but he held his speed to fifty-five.

“All right,” Jack said, finally. “Let’s review what you know. You went out there and crashed into a telephone pole. You avoided being decapitated because your little sports car was so old it didn’t have shoulder straps on the seat belt and you laid down flat on the seat as the top was sheared off above you. You suffered a nasty enough blow on the head when you hit an invisible rock.” Jack waved a hand to silence Aaron’s intended interruption. “I say invisible because you can’t see it under the snow drift that is there now. But you struck something hard enough that the blow to your head or the loudness of the impact or something deafened you and you couldn’t hear me answer the phone when you called.

“You struggled up to the church with your briefcase and telephone, found the door unlocked on a Friday night, but it’s locked on a Monday morning. You went into the church. You heard people talking, passed out and woke up with a U.S. Congresswoman kneeling over you calling an ambulance. You saw the bell rope, but you don’t remember getting it down or ringing it, just intending to.” Jack paused for a moment, but Aaron didn’t offer to contradict him. Jack was trying to build a research case and Aaron had watched him too many times to interrupt the process at this stage. He simply nodded his agreement at each point. He’d been over the story with Jack half a dozen times since the accident.

“Damn!” Jack exclaimed. “I wish you’d had a video camera with you. We’d get it on either ‘Incredible but True’ or ‘America’s Funniest Home Videos.’”

“Jack, for cryin’ out loud,” Aaron finally broke in. “Something isn’t right here.”

“I’m agreeing with you,” Jack replied. “What denomination is that church? I don’t remember seeing any sign. Who owns it?”

“I don’t know,” Aaron answered. “I couldn’t find a county listing on it. No active congregation as far as I can tell. The cemetery across the road said Twelve Oaks Cemetery, so I’m sure this is the place that Hattie wanted me to visit. Funny how she tossed that in in the last interview, like she wanted me to have seen what she’s going to tell me next.”

“Yeah. She’s playing you,” Jack answered. “Before long she’s going to tell you that that’s where she married her husband who could cook and made her a cake from scratch.”

“Ow!” Aaron groaned. “Don’t make me laugh. She may be telling me tall tales, but they are original ones. She’s not going to repeat something that anyone else has said. Or vice versa. She’s one of a kind.”

“I believe that, but the point is, we’ve got to find out who owns that church and get inside it, or you are going to keep having doubts. Why don’t you confront the Congresswoman when you see her?” Jack asked.

“Jack, now that I’ve decided to apply for the job she was offering, I don’t want to give her excuses for not hiring me,” Aaron responded. “I’m just going to have to go slow and easy on this one. After all, there’s no money on the table here.”

Chapter Six A: Strategy

2005-11-09T18:30:00.000-08:00

Pol Stamos and Alex Jasper faced off in Alex’s suite at the Sheraton South in Indianapolis. The tension was high. Pol had always acquiesced to Alex’s requests, or directions as her mentor. But today she had a new feeling of power in the knowledge that she was the leader of this mission, appointed by the architect. She felt stronger, more self-assured, and confident than ever in her life.

“All indications are that he is a risk,” Alex was saying. “You should stay as far away from him as possible. He will never blend in with your staff and there will be conflict from the beginning to the probably unfortunate end.” Alex looked the part of an eighteenth century barrister with his portly figure crammed into a three-piece pin-striped suit. The impeccable appearance was marred by a single chili bean that clung tenaciously to one lapel.

“Even if I agreed with your assessment,” Pol responded, “the recommendation is wrong. You taught me from the start to keep my friends close and my enemies closer. Either way he should be part of my team. Besides, Alex, he is just the type that we should have. He is suffering under destroyed dreams that we are trying to rebuild. If my purpose is to guide and inspire, he is exactly the type who will be led. This is strictly a matter of practicalities. Consider him my first test subject.”

“Inspiring and leading can’t be done one person at a time. You have to ask if he is aggressive enough to sell your ideas to thousands, no millions of others in order to make the dream a reality,” Alex argued. “The person in this position needs to multiply your followers with every word he writes.”

“I have asked myself that question and answered it. He is the one I want.” She pulled back the drape to look out at the weather. If it was snow in Fort Wayne, it was rain in Indianapolis. The weather had been catastrophic around the world this year, and Indiana had not been missed with a string of winter tornadoes that left destruction and death in their paths.

“In the old days we would have just made him disappear—a one-way ticket to the Bermuda Triangle,” Alex growled.

“We don’t do things that way anymore, Alex. And don’t you dare suggest it,” Pol turned on him. “If anything happens to him I’ll torpedo the whole operation and you can explain the scars to the architect.” Pol glared at Alex as if daring him to challenge her.

“Pol, Pol,” Alex was suddenly soothing. “Oh please, Pol. Don’t talk like that. That’s too horrible to think of. I’ll back off. I won’t criticize him to the architect, or you for wanting him. But please, don’t suggest that you’d rebel against us.” Alex was genuinely frightened of Pol’s threat. It was too horrid a prospect.

“Oh, Alex,” Pol said mollified. “You know I wouldn’t act against her best interests nor do anything to harm her. That was petulant and childish of me to say so. You just have to give me a little leaway now. I know now who I am and I have to feel my way into my responsibilities. You’ve trained me well, now let me do my job.”

“Okay, Pol,” Alex sighed. “I’ll back off. Just be careful. These things have a way of backfiring. I’ll be near enough to help if you call.”

“Thank you, dearie,” Pol said quietly. It was an endearment she’d used with Alex since she was just five. “You know I’m going to need a steady flow of information on the issues. I can’t be caught flat-footed in a press conference like I was last week on the channel-dredging issue.”

“Truly an accident,” Alex reassured her awkwardly. “I should have called.”

“I’ll make sure the staff knows to let your calls through right away. You won’t be delayed,” Pol assured him, “but you’ve got to come out in public as the favorite uncle sometime.”

“I don’t think I’ll dare for a few months,” Alex sighed. “You’ve just proposed hiring a genealogist on your staff. It wouldn’t take long for him to find out I’m not in your family tree. As far as official record go, I don’t exist.”

“I’ll be sure to keep him too busy to investigate,” Pol said, then abruptly changed the subject. “I need to be leaving to get to the speech. Nina should be here by now.” As if on cue the phone rang in the room and Pol picked it up. “I’m on my way,” she answered. She paused long enough to pat Alex kindly on the shoulder and smile at him, then picked up her coat and portfolio and left.

“Good luck,” Alex said after the door closed. “Good luck.”

Chapter Five B: Dreaming

2005-11-08T18:35:00.000-08:00

Not long after Jack and Theresa left, the doorbell rang again. Aaron groaned as he leveraged himself out of his chair to answer the door. He could go for a week or more and never hear his doorbell. But now that it hurt to move, the guests kept arriving. If it was missionaries of some sort they were about to need saving. He opened the door on the third insistent ring of the bell. A young man somewhere between puberty and forty stood on the step with a briefcase clutched in front of him, dancing from foot to foot in the cold. He was dressed in a simple blue suit with a club tie and light blue shirt. So much for it being missionaries, Aaron thought. They are always black and white.

“May I help you?” he asked without opening the door wide.

“Mr. Case? I’m John O’Reilly with the Hanford Insurance Agency. I’m here with a settlement for your auto,” the man said. Aaron moved his age estimate into the thirties.

“I didn’t file a claim yet,” Aaron answered.

“Well, you know the commercial: We always settle early,” laughed John O’Reilly. “May I come in and go over the accident report with you?”

“Sure, I suppose,” Aaron hesitated with visions of letting an unknown person into his home when he was not really able to defend himself. “Do you have ID?”

“Oh, yes,” the man answered. “Sorry, I should have given you my card when you came to the door. Here’s the card. Here’s my company ID. And my driver’s license.” Aaron glanced quickly at the three items and kept the card. He recognized the company name and address as where he sent his payments every three months. The ID seemed legitimate. He pulled the door the rest of the way open and let the agent into the house.

“Sorry about the extra precautions,” Aaron muttered.

“No problem, sir,” the young man answered. Aaron readjusted his aged estimate down into the twenties. He hated being called sir. He was only 55, almost 56. But the appellation always made him feel old. He chose to think of the people who used it as being very young. “We at Hanford always appreciate a careful client. We tend to pay out less in the long run.”

“Have a seat, won’t you?” Aaron pointed to the sofa and returned to his chair. “Moving still hurts so I hope you don’t mind my sitting in a cushion of pillows.”

“You do whatever makes you comfortable, sir,” John responded. “You’ve got a great record with our company. We’ve insured both your car and your home for the past fifteen years, all without incident. When a person has a record like that, they deserve whatever special attention we can give them when they need it. Here. These are pictures of your car after we had it towed in. I’m amazed that you walked away with only relatively minor injuries. Amazed and thankful. I’d much rather pay for hospital bills than death benefits.” He made an attempt at a light-hearted laugh which fell short, just past his over-polished shoes.

Aaron looked at the pictures sadly. He bought that car used in San Francisco in ’76 when he was dating Angela. He’d babied it along for nearly thirty years and here it was a mangled bit of scrap metal. The car was thirty-five years old, not quite enough to qualify it as a classic. Probably not worth the down payment on something new.

“I think you will agree that we had to declare it a total loss,” John was saying. “If you’d like to salvage hub-caps or anything of sentimental value, we could arrange that. I took the liberty of emptying the glove box and trunk and have a box of things in my car for you. Otherwise it really doesn’t require your attention at all.”

“I don’t think I need its hubcaps,” Aaron mumbled. “Well, what did you come up with?”

“There aren’t too many comparable vehicles on the road today,” John said as though in apology for the news he was about to bring. “I have operated under the assumption that based on your record with our company and the odometer reading of 80,000 miles, that you have kept this car in like-new condition.”

“The odometer…” Aaron started. John interrupted him.

“Please don’t tell me information that might adversely affect your payout. Unless you believe that my settlement offer is too low, it is generally better to wait to correct my assumptions until an appeal.” John paused and leaned in toward Aaron and dropped his voice. “I’m not supposed to tell you things like that. But I was told to make every allowance that I could to come up with a fair value for your property.”

“Okay,” Aaron responded. Who told him to do that? He wondered. In fact, who told him he’d been in an accident.

“In order to affix a value to your vehicle, we’ve worked on the basis of what it would cost to replace it, the same as you have replacement value insurance on your home. So this is more of a loss of service check than actual damages.” He handed Aaron a check. He read the number without letting it register on his mind. Brand new in 1970 the car was about $3500. In 1976 he’d bought it for $2100. The check in his hand was for $7,604.29.

“I added in the value of the tires which looked to be pretty new, and I could see that there was evidence of an engine rebuild, so I know you’ve put money into the car as well,” John continued.

“But what…?” Aaron began. John was fast.

“But what do you do until you get a replacement? I knew that would be one of your top questions. This is a voucher,” John said handing Aaron another piece of paper, “for a car rental. I’ve alerted Enterprise that you will probably be calling in a couple days. All you need to do is hand them this when they get here with your rental car. You have two weeks of rental at that point to get a replacement vehicle arranged. I’d recommend, of course, that you don’t get the rental vehicle until you are ready to drive. You probably won’t feel much like driving for several days according to the doctors. In the meantime, if you need to go to the doctor, grocery, etc. please call a taxi and retain your receipts for reimbursement, or if a friend drives you, report the mileage and time and I assure you we will reimburse them for their effort.”

“Is there anything else I should know?” Aaron asked quietly.

“Oh yes,” John responded pulling out another portfolio. “In this envelope you will find the full story of your benefits regarding your injuries. Of course, you are fully covered for personal injury, so you won’t really be seeing any bills from the hospital. I’ve set up the information for them and will stop by Parkview tomorrow morning to intercept any billing that may have already been generated. Should you receive any bills, please check in with me before you make payments so we don’t get double payments going on. You shouldn’t have any out-of-pocket expenses on this. Should you have to pay in advance or on the spot for any services that you require, please keep your receipts and call me each week with a total and I’ll deliver a check to cover it. We don’t want you to have any financial burdens while you are out of work. I understand that you are self-employed, so it’s not like you have sick time that you can take. When you are feeling better, we’ll take a stab of what kind of income loss you’ve taken and get you caught up. I’m sure we can come up with something that will be equitable.

“And one more thing,” Aaron was beginning to be overwhelmed with this agent’s list of benefits. “It doesn’t seem that you need in-home care during your recovery period, but it must be difficult for you to prepare meals. Here is a voucher book for Meals on Wheels. Call this number and they will deliver up to three meals once a day. All you will have to do is heat them up. And the food isn’t bad.”

“I know you must be tired and I don’t want to disturb your recovery any more than I have to, so if you’d like to sign the release on your car, you can keep the check and I’ll be on my way,” John concluded. He gently laid a pen on the table with the release on the car. It was the insurance paper Aaron had ever seen. A simple bill of sale when it came down to it. It didn’t have anything to do with any of his benefits except releasing his car. He glanced one more time at the check and signed his name. John took the paper and closed his briefcase.

“Don’t get up Mr. Case. I’ll show myself out. I’ll just run out to the car and get the box of personal effects that we cleaned out and you will be ready to start over,” he left the room and returned a few moments later with a banker’s box in which there were miscellaneous papers, a pair of gloves and the snow emergency kit that Aaron had long carried in the back of his car: Warm sweater, candles, energy bars, and a space blanket. He glanced through the material and could think of no other items that he’d left in his car. There was even a yellow rubber duck with a number on the bottom that he’d once caught at a carnival. They’d done a thorough job of cleaning it out.

“That’s good,” Aaron said, “but I do have one quick question for you that I’d like a straight answer to. Who called you?”

“Oh,” answered John. “I hoped I wouldn’t get that question, but there wasn’t anything that actually instructed me not to tell you. It was Representative Stamos who called. She said she was a friend and that you’d had a rough time and she would count it a personal favor if we sped up the process and took good care of you. Norman Hanford who owns our agency was an old friend of Representative Stamos’s father. He put the material together himself and sent me out with it. I hope that is all okay?” John fumbled with his keys for a moment as if seeking approval for his work.

“That’s fine,” Aaron answered. “I was so out of it that I didn’t remember asking her to call, that’s all.” Aaron thanked John O’Reilly of the Hanford Insurance Agency and the young man left.

When he was gone, Aaron sat back in his chair for a long time musing about what he’d just discovered. His friendly congresswoman had fixed his insurance claim for him. What did she think she owed him that she needed to make things so smooth for him? Did she think that she was showing him how good life was for those who worked for her?

Okay, she did absolutely nothing illegal. She simply called his insurance company for him. Said she needed to see how good they were to clients. And there was nothing that went beyond the range of what his insurance covered if they were in the mood to be generous. It’s just that one expected to have to fight an insurance company for their benefits. This was almost like a television ad. Would they be calling on him for a testimonial tomorrow?

Too many questions with no answers. Aaron was exhausted again. It might be time for more sleep. A little more Vicodin. He heated a meatloaf and mashed potatoes dinner that Theresa had left him, but was too tired to finish it. He eased himself into the bedroom recliner and flipped on the TV. He pulled his blanket up over himself and was asleep before Desperate Housewives came on.

The dreams crept up on him. He was sleeping the exhausted sleep of the injured when he looked at the television. It was a news program from Bluffton talking about weather conditions and cautioning people to be careful or they would end up like the scene of a small sports car tangled in a drainage ditch with a telephone pole. Aaron saw the car from all angles like the photographs the insurance agent brought him. The camera zoomed in on the mashed hood, the rag-top fluttering in shreds, and the front of the car wrapped around a rock protruding from the roadbed. Then the camera zoomed out and Aaron could see footprints leading up to the door of the church where a man stood leaning against the door, a briefcase in one hand and a cell-phone clutched in the other. The words became clear as he was suddenly standing next to the man who kept repeating, “Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?”

Aaron walked through the door of the church. The inside was massive, in fact, he had walked into a cathedral. A great organ was playing and at least a thousand people were standing singing. But everyone was singing a different hymn, or song. Aaron started to laugh as he heard snatches of Amazing Grace, Chattanooga Choochoo, and the National Anthem as he walked up the aisle. In the pulpit was the same strange man that he’d seen now with a cell phone in his hand chanting “Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?” Three altar boys carrying candles and swinging a sensor fell into step in front of Aaron as he continued walking up the aisle. Behind him scuttled something that resembled ants or little spiders, each one carrying a giant chair balanced as if in a Cirque du Soleil act. The strange man with the cell phone in the pulpit changed his chant and was now repeating, “Take a chair. Take a chair.”

But suddenly it was the front of the cathedral that drew Aaron’s attention. An array of big screen televisions covered the front of the area on which was an image of a huge stained glass window. As Aaron watched the screens converged so that they were all displaying a part of the single image. A chair moved under him from behind and Aaron was being carried to a prime seat watching the big screen TV. The chair tilted back and Aaron was comfortably in his own recliner with a remote control in his hand. He clicked the control button and the figures on the screen began to move. A man and woman (Adam and Eve?), entered the picture from the left. Aaron shuddered even in his dream. Surely this fat guy wasn’t what the entire human race sprang from. And they were too well clothed. Weren’t Adam and Eve naked? Damn. That would be nice. He clicked the remote again, but the channel didn’t change. Instead another figure entered from up center. He just sort of emerged through the blank space, not really walking, but gliding.

“Well done,” the new member said, addressing one or both of the Adam and Eve. Well, that shot that. God threw Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden didn’t he? He wouldn’t have been congratulating them. Aaron couldn’t tell the gender of the newcomer. He/she was dressed in a Roman Toga and seemed to be bestowing something on the two… no on the woman, not on the man. She knelt in front of him/her and a sword whipped suddenly toward her neck, stopping short by a hair’s breadth. She was being knighted. There was something wrong with the volume controls and Aaron clicked at the remote control again.

“We have to trim and plant where we have the greatest opportunity to encourage growth. We would lose your effectiveness in a race for the Senate,” the androgynous figure was saying to her. “It’s not out of reach for you to become Governor, though. If the irritant isn’t soothed, it will fester. She’ll respond by maiming herself rather than suffering. You’ve seen how temperamental she’s become of late. So, continue to bring your message out and to foster the knowledge that will lead them to soothe her. It is what you were meant to do.”

“But I don’t know how to soothe her,” the woman said. “What if I do the wrong thing?”

“You don’t need to do work. Remember, you purpose is to teach, inspire, and guide her symbionts into a mutually supportive relationship. They have to come up with the right technology themselves.”

“Is it all real?” she asked.

“Let’s ask them,” her companion said. The monitors seemed to come into better focus then and Aaron could see that they were standing in a football stadium. The fans in the stands suddenly stood with a roar of applause and cheering. The volume was so loud that Aaron struggled with the remote to turn it down. But he found his cell phone in his hand instead and began frantically snapping pictures with it. Then the camera zoomed in again and Aaron could see the face of the woman clearly for the first time.

He jolted awake. The Sports Report was on the 11:00 news. They were showing pictures of the teams advancing the next step toward the Superbowl in February. Fans were rushing the field and carrying banners in support of the Colts. Aaron switched off the television with the remote and leveraged himself out of the big chair. He padded silently into the living room where his cell phone still lay on the table next to the sofa where Pol Stamos had left it when she came in.

He flipped it open and switched to the camera function and stared at the thumbnails of pictures he’d taken on the phone. Still staring at the tiny screen, Aaron picked up his land-line and dialed the familiar number. A sleepy-sounding voice answered on the second ring.

“Hello, who is this?”

“Jack, it’s me, Aaron,” Aaron spoke into the phone. Jack was suddenly alert.

“Are you all right son? Do you need anything.”

“I need to go to Franklin.”

“Now?”

“No in the morning,” Aaron said and looked at the clock. “Sorry to have woken you up, Jack, but can you drive me down tomorrow morning?”

“Franklin as in Franklin, Indiana south of Indianapolis?”

“Yes.”

“That’s where that congresswoman is speaking tomorrow, isn’t it?” Jack sounded suddenly thoughtful.

“Yes.”

“I’ll pick you up at 8:00. Be sure you’ve got your pain pills packed, it’s a long trip.”

“Thanks, Jack.” Aaron hung up the phone and looked again at the screen of his cell phone. A warning appeared over the thumbnails indicating that his battery was low and to re-charge immediately. He plugged the phone into its cradle on his desk and went back to bed.

Chapter Five A: Sunday, Sunday

2005-11-07T23:11:00.000-08:00

By Sunday morning Aaron was tired of sleeping. He’d lain in bed with the Sentinel, reading it from front to back. He’d worked the crossword puzzle, Sudoku, and Scrabble quiz. He’d eaten two of Theresa’s frozen dinners with pain pills and had actually decided to put clothes on, but changed his mind when he tried to bend over. He settled for a shower and an old sweat suit. He couldn’t face sitting at his desktop computer, but set his laptop on his chair-side reading table. He brought a cup of coffee and settled in to do some research. He started at the public library, thinking he would look up the old tax records on Aunt Hattie’s property, but instead found himself looking for references to the Twelve Oaks Church. It was pretty sparse. He checked in with the Wells County, Historical Society and Museum, but most of the information on their site was related to Bluffton, much of which he had written himself. He couldn’t remember ever having come across records of Twelve Oaks Church.

It was not listed under active churches of Wells County, which meant that there was no official denominational affiliation for the church. That didn’t mean a lot. Churches of many sorts escaped official notice. But usually if there was a historic building of some sort, it would show up on someone’s radar someplace. He would cross-check the land tax records. Even an exempt piece of property would have to show up on the land roles.

Even this proved elusive and Aaron found himself staring at pages and lines of records without really seeing them. Instead, his mind was filled with images of Pol Stamos. The total absurdity of having entertained a US Representative in his pajamas was so ludicrous to him that he almost burst out laughing. The first chuckle sent a warning spasm through his ribcage that brought the impending laugh to an abrupt halt. What was he thinking? It was more like she was entertaining him in his own home. She cooked dinner for him! Well, granted, Theresa had actually cooked the dinner and Pol only heated it for the specified time in the microwave, but still… Pol? How could he be thinking of a US Congresswoman that he hardly knew by her first name? This was really getting absurd.

Yet… She seemed so genuine. She didn’t just talk like he would expect a politician to do. Oh, sure, she could talk and she’d shown him that, but she not only listened to him, she coaxed stories from him that he hadn’t related to any but his best and most intimate friends. Well, what could he expect? She’s a politician after all. She could probably do his own job better than he could, sitting in front of anyone and interviewing them, getting them to expose their hidden memories of lives long past. She had to make people believe she cares. No one would vote for her otherwise. She was just part of the big governmental machine that ground people’s souls out of them and made them into fodder for special interests and big business.

Bitter? No he wasn’t bitter. It was just the way life works. Not her fault. He was sure she’d had great ideals when she started her political career. Probably still believed she had them. What had she said? “Come work for me and I’ll show you how?” That’s ballsy. What does she think she’s got that Jimmy Carter didn’t have? What does she think she’s got that Angela didn’t have?

The pain was intense enough that Aaron went to take another Vicodin. He was blaming it on the ribs. But was that where it hurt?

When he returned to his chair with a fresh cup of coffee, he changed his search parameters. “Let’s see who you really are, Congresswoman,” he muttered under his breath. This was his job. He found out who people and where they fit in the greater context of life. People in public office were even easier to track down than others.

First Aaron attacked the US House of Representatives information site and read through Representative Stamos’s website and profile. They really cut the state up in some odd pieces with the last re-districting, extending Congressional District 6 all the way from the southern tip of Allen county south to just across the river from Cincinnati. It actually cut in across the south to include a bit of Johnson and Shelby Counties south of Indianapolis. So delivering a speech in Franklin was squarely within her district if at its very frontiers. With that area of the state, it was a wonder that she’d ever been elected. Her district contained the eastern tier of industrial cities, including Muncie, Marion, Anderson, and Richmond. And mixed in with it, some of Indiana’s richest Ohio valley farmland.

So what did the candidate say to those people to get them to vote for her—a liberal, democrat, female? Must have been good.

Aaron started working his way through news clippings, speeches, voting records, campaign budgets, and voter satisfaction surveys. It had been a close election after the redistricting, but there was no question of the winner. She showed well in every county. Her record and her practices were squeaky clean. Aaron couldn’t remember a Stamos family in older records, but he looked for her family information all the same. Telephone directories showed an Ari Stamos family on record as far back as 1959. Pol was born in 1960. No particular information of note about the family. No great fortune behind her election.

The more Aaron read about Pol Stamos the more impressed he was. She appeared to be everything she said she was… or everything Aaron wanted her to be. She hadn’t said that much about herself now that he thought of it, just that she could make it different. She believed that and Aaron found himself desperately wanting to believe it as well.

It was about 2:00 in the afternoon when there was a knock at the door and it was unlocked and gently opened. Jack’s voice came through the opening.

“Don’t get up. Can we come in?”

“Yeah of course, Jack,” Aaron called from his chair. Jack and Theresa stomped the snow off their boots inside the door and hung their coats in the closet with the familiarity of old friends. Theresa bustled into the living room first with Jack not far behind.

“Working?” she exclaimed. “Aaron, you are supposed to be resting. Have you eaten? Did you take your pain pills? I knew you should have stayed at our house.” Aaron chuckled in spite of himself.

“I’ve eaten, Mom, and I don’t get another pain pill till 3:00. I’ve done nothing but sleep ever since I got home and I had to do something or go stir crazy.”

“You could have watched TV,” Theresa rejoined.

“It’s Sunday afternoon, Theresa,” Jack jumped in. “For Pete’s sake, don’t ride the boy for entertaining himself.”

Theresa humphed to herself. “Well, I just want to make sure he’s been eating,” she said heading off to the kitchen.

“How ya doin’ kid?” Jack asked as he looked at Aaron from a little closer than Aaron thought was merited.

“As well as can be expected, Jack,” Aaron answered. “Pain comes and goes. Pills cause weird dreams. Can’t cough, laugh, or sneeze. Other than that, everything’s hunky dory.”

“Look at me,” Jack caught Aaron by surprise and he looked up into the older man’s eyes. “Good. Your pupils aren’t dilated any more. You’re tracking okay. Bad headaches or hearing loss today?”

“No. Jeez, Jack, you’ve got a doctorate in history, not medicine,” Aaron waved him away. “I’m doing fine. Believe me, I’m a big baby and I’d tell you if I wasn’t. I can’t believe they don’t put a cast on you or something for broken ribs. How do they expect a guy to heal if he goes into a spasm every time he moves?”

“You know what the doctor said,” Jack answered. “They heal too tight and restrict your breathing if they strap you together. This is one you’re just going to have to tough out.”

“Well, I tell you, I don’t feel all that tough right at the moment,” Aaron shook his head. “Guess that’ll teach me to tangle with a telephone pole that’s bigger than me.”

“Where did you put all that food?” Theresa exclaimed coming into the room. “Did the accident put a hole in your stomach? I’ve got to make up some more dinners.”

“First you were complaining about him not eating, now you are complaining that he is eating. Make up your mind, woman,” Jack sounded crabby, but the twinkle in his eye said this was what he expected from his wife of nearly fifty years.

“Well, I wanted him to eat it, but I was expecting it would last through Monday!” Theresa said.

“I have to have something to eat every time I take a pill,” Aaron said. “So I even had dinner at midnight last night.”

“Well, I’ll just whip up a couple more dishes to get you through till morning,” Theresa said. “I have a few ingredients left over.” She was gone in a whirlwind, content to be mistress of her domain in the kitchen.

“Also,” Aaron said softly to Jack, “I had company last night.”

“Who came by?” Jack asked, suddenly interested.

“My guardian angel,” Aaron said. “The woman who called the ambulance and let you know where I was.”

“Sent me to the wrong place, didn’t she?” Jack groused. “How’d she find you?”

“She collected my briefcase and cell phone after I was gone in the ambulance. Name and address are on the luggage tag. She just came by to drop them off and see how I was doing. Turned out she stayed for dinner.”

“You can’t be hurting as much as I thought you were,” Jack growled at him. “Why didn’t she just give the stuff to the police?”

“I have a feeling this lady doesn’t let go of responsibility, even if it is just perceived,” Aaron said.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, you remember all the old stories about being responsible for a person if you save their life and all,” Aaron posited. “Something like that.”

“You mean this gal’s going to be hanging around you for the rest of your life just because she called an ambulance? Sounds a little obsessive.”

“No. Jack, get this: the lady is a U.S. Congresswoman.”

“What?”

“It was Representative Pol Stamos of the 6th District. She lives out there somewhere near where the accident was. Just got home when she heard me ring the churchbell.” Aaron cut himself off. He didn’t want to spill too much of his story to Jack, at least not right now.

“Congress is still in session,” Jack surmised. “What’s she doing wasting taxpayers’ money here in Indiana saving your sorry butt?”

“Thanks. It’s a holiday weekend. Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday,” Aaron answered. “She’s back to do a speech.”

Jack began probing about Aaron’s meeting with the Congresswoman and subsequent dinner. “You mean she just went into your kitchen and cooked you dinner?” He exclaimed at one point.

“Really, Jack,” Aaron said, “Theresa cooked dinner. All Pol did was put it in the microwave.”

“Pol? Is that how you address a U.S. Representative? When I was teaching U.S. Government it would have been The Honorable Lady from Indiana,” Jack teased.

“Well, it still would be if I addressed her in public,” Aaron said, “but it seemed a little over the top for someone who was heating up turkey and dressing in my microwave.”

They continued to chat, analyzing the information that Aaron had looked up over the internet and discussing the Congresswoman’s politics. It was not until Aaron casually mentioned that she’d suggested he should work for her that Jack took a serious pause in the conversation.

“You should consider it,” he said at last.

“I doubt she was serious,” Aaron answered. “Really, she hardly knows me and I’m sure she’s got her pick of serious campaign advisors. I don’t even know what she’d want me to do.”

“Handle her press office, obviously,” Jack stated flatly. “Can’t tell me that she didn’t see your citation from Carter. Hard hitting experience is in big demand these days. Everybody in Washington is twenty-something years old. I tell you they’re looking for seasoned talent again.”

“Yeah, well, I’m pretty well seasoned, all right. Besides, I’ve got a job and we’ve got a business. I don’t need to clutter up my life with politics.”

“You should consider it for two reasons,” Jack rejoined. “First, you are good and capable and might be able to do something meaningful. Second, it might be good for our business to have a foot inside a Congresswoman’s office. We’ve been getting a lot of requests for research on everything from oil prices to farm subsidies. And most importantly, you’ve wasted your talents and your passion for twenty years and it’s time you got off your butt and did something real.”

“That’s three reasons.”

“Well, one was a bonus. Consider it.”

“All right, I’ll consider it.”

“Seriously.”

Theresa came in with Aaron’s three o’clock pain pill and another dinner. After he’d eaten and they were satisfied that he was going to survive, the older couple packed up to leave.

“Call me if you need anything.”

“Thanks, Jack. Thank you, Theresa.”

“Anything,” Jack shot back as they left the house.

Chapter Four D: Dinner with the Congresswoman

2005-11-07T00:40:00.000-08:00

Aaron and Pol sat in the living room eating. Aaron hadn’t moved from his chair since she arrived. She found a serving tray that she could bring him food on. Her own, she held in her lap with a glass of sparkling water on the coffee table in front of her. It was a solid meal of turkey, dressing and potatoes with gravy, and broccoli. The helpings were huge and Pol doubted if she would be able to eat the whole meal, but it was very tasty.

Aaron had dozed off for a few minutes while Pol cooked, but he seemed to be lively and alert and companionable now that they were eating.

“I can’t help but think I should know you,” Aaron said. “The name and face are both so familiar. Of course, I suppose you hear that from a lot of guys.”

“Well, yes,” Pol answered, “as a matter of fact I do. They’ve heard the name. They are sure they’ve seen the face, but can’t remember where. And of course, they are all correct. They have seen my face and heard my name. But people don’t really pay attention to who they send to congress except during an election. As soon as they’ve done their civic duty they completely forget about Washington. Or at least they try to. That’s been my experience.”

Aaron sat with a fork halfway to his mouth, his mouth hanging open in amazement.

“You’re not Representative Pol Stamos?” he gasped.

“Yes. One and the same.”

“But. Well, you must surely have more important things to do than sitting with a guy you rescued and bringing his briefcase around and cooking dinner. I mean you could have sent a courier with the stuff. You didn’t have to come yourself. I mean…” Aaron realized he was stammering and shut his mouth abruptly. Pol was laughing.

“Does this seem like a poor use of taxpayer’s dollars to you?” she asked. “We have to show that we actually care about our constituents.”

“But you’re not, I mean, I don’t think you’re my representative are you? I mean from my congressional district?” Aaron asked.

“No. I’m from the next district south, number six. But I came home for the weekend to deal with some family business and that’s how I happened to be here. I really don’t like living in Washington very much. I prefer to be out here when I can be. We’re not in session Monday because of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. But I’m speaking at a small gathering in Greenwood. Of course there is always the possibility that it will become a large gathering. We chose the venue because of its reputation as a center of the Ku Klux Klan. A lot of people don’t realize how active the clan still is in Indiana.” Pol was comfortable talking and Aaron was finding out more about his government than he’d thought about in several years.

“Forgive me,” he said, “but actually, I hadn’t paid much attention to the congressional races outside our district and I thought Pol Stamos was a man. I obviously should have been paying closer attention. I’m afraid I don’t know a lot about your politics, but I’m glad to hear that at least you are speaking on behalf of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and not as a part of the supremacist movement. I haven’t kept up as much on politics in the last few years as I used to. In fact, I guess you’d say I’ve been avoiding it for a while.”

“Why is that?” Pol asked. “All the signs I’ve seen are that you are pretty savvy about politics in general, and might even have been considered an activist at one time or another.”

“What signs are those?” Aaron asked.

“Well, to start, there’s the framed letter from Jimmy Carter hanging over your fireplace. I haven’t been close enough to read it yet, but I recognize the signature and the White House stationery. Then there is the wide array of history books on your shelves, the Indian artifacts on display, and the history degrees hanging over your computer. Sounds to me like someone who has more than a passing interest in politics,” Pol summarized.

“Had,” Aaron corrected. “Don’t get me wrong, the things that you see are treasured artifacts of a past life. After President Carter lost to Ronald Reagan in 1980 I pretty much gave up on politics. Oh, Bill Clinton almost got me suckered in again, but look what we’ve had since. I’m glad there are people like you working in Washington, keeping things balanced as much as possible, but every time we make any gains, corporate big business and right wing politicos buy their way back into power and we lose more than we’ve gained. It just doesn’t seem worth it to keep banging your head against the wall.”

“So you’ve just given up and gone into hiding?” Pol exclaimed. “I over-estimated you!”

“I’m doing what I can in my own way,” Aaron came back with his reply.

“And what way is that?”

“I write history. I collect stories and preserve them and hope that someday the next generation will read them and understand that there is a pattern to what happens in history and hope that when the big decisions come along that they will understand and act wisely.” Aaron paused and sipped his water. “That’s really all I’m able to do.”

“Unable or unwilling?”

“It amounts to the same thing really.”

“No, it doesn’t. I don’t know why I feel compelled to find out more about you, but I really want to know what changed and what we can do to change it back. If it was that bad, we must have done something really wrong.” Pol waited in the silence, then spoke one last time. “Tell me, please.”

Aaron finished his meal and thought carefully about whether he wanted to show this side to a woman he hardly knew and who was a politician as well. If it weren’t for the fact that he found himself craving her company and not wanting her to leave him in his own lonely silence again just yet. She stood and reached for his tray.

“Leave it,” he said. “Please sit down and let me tell you.” Pol sat back on the sofa and looked intently at Aaron. “I was an idealist in college. A war protester (that was Viet Nam. You probably don’t remember it since I think you are quite a bit younger than me). I came out of college in the winter of ’73 with a degree in History and a desire to get right into government. I became a civil servant and was assigned as an assistant social worker at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs.”

“Oh no,” Pol said involuntarily. Good, Aaron thought. She understood what that meant. She actually studied social history. What he had found at Pine Ridge when he was assigned there as a “social worker” was a gun and orders to shoot anyone who came near the office of the BIA. It didn’t take long to discover that the problem of the people was a corrupt tribal government propped up by the BIA and supported by squads of private police and white vigilantes. And he was plopped into the mess as a 22-year-old college grad thinking he was going to help people get aid and support that was needed. By March, his job consisted mainly of trying not to be shot at as FBI agents in full military camouflage surrounded 200 of the poorest people he’d ever seen who occupied Wounded Knee, a historic site of the massacre of native peoples. When the 71 day occupation ended, two of the defenders and two FBI agents were dead.

But those were only two Native Americans who died that year of nearly a hundred who were American Indian Movement members or supporters that were murdered that year. Aaron narrowly missed his own death when BIA headquarters were bombed in June. He was seen as an enemy by the Native people he had come to help and a traitor by those who had hired him. In September, Aaron overheard a conversation discussing a renewed attack on the house where he was billeted. He grabbed his duffle-bag and gear and hiked out of the area, avoiding Goons (corrupt cops hired by the Tribal chairman) and hiking east out of the Badlands and into Minnesota. Once there, he caught a student stand-by flight to Egypt and spent the next three years trying to understand the roots of the anti-western atmosphere of the Middle East.

“I knew some of the people who died out there that year. I knew a lot of people who were afraid they’d die. When I left for South Dakota as a government employee, I thought I’d avoided Viet Nam. Instead, I found it on the plains.”

“Was that it, then? Did you give up on our system because of one bad experience?” Pol asked.

“No. I learned a lot in the next three years exploring the Middle East and living on the good graces of the people I met. But this was home and I came back. I went out to California and became a political correspondent for the San Francisco Chronicle. That’s where the Carter Campaign folks picked me up to run the San Francisco press office. It was so obvious to me that Carter was the right man in office. And I believe he’d have won if it weren’t for the Teheran affair. They played straight to Reagan. They even let all the hostages go as soon as Reagan was elected. I watched an entire nation be duped by a bunch of teenagers holding hostages. And nothing we said made a difference. We lost big time, and there really aren’t a lot of jobs available for former press coordinators of losing candidates.

“The good thing was that I’d fallen in love and got married while I was in San Francisco. We were still both idealists out to change the world and if we couldn’t do it in a presidential election, then we’d go out and do it one kid at a time out in the desert. We moved to Bakersfield and I registered as a substitute teacher. It wasn’t long before I was a basketball coach as well. My wife was working as a guidance counselor in the high school and we were happy that we could see changes in some of the kids we helped.”

“What happened, Aaron?” Pol asked gently. “Where is she now?”

“In the desert. Ashes scattered to the four winds the way she always said she’d want to be buried.” Aaron paused again. It was hard to bring this part out and tell it to someone, but since he’d told Jack and Theresa the story twenty years ago, he hadn’t told any one what happened.

“Two students, drunk, ran a red light and plowed into her car. She was killed instantly. Thank God. She never new that they were the two she helped through their probation which had ended that day.” A tear pooled in Aaron’s eye. He knew he couldn’t sob through this story as he had when he told Jack and Theresa, raging about what a waste of time it was to try to be out improving the world. If he let go like that his ribs would kill him. Instead he straightened in his chair the best he could and looked Pol straight in the eye. “That, Congresswoman, was where it ended. That was when I decided someone else would have to be on the front lines from now on. It was too hard for me to do. It was just too much.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes. It was like a confessional. Aaron regretted that he was not being treated to her laugh anymore, but what could he expect? You don’t dump on someone like that and get light heartedness in return. Pol got up and cleared the dishes away. He could hear her washing things up but he still didn’t move. He was going to have to say good night to Congresswoman Stamos soon so he could go to sleep with his ghosts and his pain. He needed to hide and not be seen. She was a pleasant interlude to his solitude, but way out of his class. Best say good night now.

When he looked up, she was standing in front of him with her coat and scarf on. He started to say good night but she placed a finger on his lips and hushed him. Gently she said, “Aaron Case, come to work for me and I will show you how we can change the world. Think about it and give me a call.”

She walked to the door and let herself out.

Chapter Four C: A Visitor

2005-11-06T21:03:00.000-08:00

When he awoke, it was mid-afternoon and time for another Vicodin. He read the label and decided he’d better have something to eat with it when he became aware of the doorbell ringing.

He called out, but he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs to make a very loud sound. It still hurt, so he made his way to the front door. He fumbled at the latch and finally got the door open. There standing in front of him was the woman he had seen the night before. In her hands she held his briefcase and cell phone. Aaron was speechless for a moment then greeted her as he opened the door wider and pulled his robe closed tighter.

“Hello,” he finally managed. “I’m sorry, I’m a bit surprised to find you.”

“Sorry to disturb you,” she said. “I’m Pol Stamos. I was at the scene of your accident last night. After the ambulance left and the tow truck pulled what remained of your vehicle out of the ditch, I looked around and discovered that you’d apparently dropped these. The phone was in the foyer of the church and your briefcase was outside the front door. I’m afraid that in the rush of getting you out to the hospital we didn’t really look after your belongings very well.”

“Please, won’t you come in?” Aaron recovered enough to say. “I’m sorry, I don’t look like much today. I’m a little drugged out yet.” She stepped in still holding his briefcase and phone. “Could you just set those down next to the sofa? I’m afraid I don’t want to risk picking anything up just now.”

“You poor thing,” she said. “Are you badly injured?” Without waiting for a response, she plowed on with a speech she must have been practicing. “I came into town as soon as I could get away this afternoon. I’m afraid I had some business in Muncie this morning and couldn’t get away. I went to Lutheran Hospital, which is where the EMTs said they were going, but found out they’d taken you to Parkview instead. When I got there, they said you’d been released. I came over here because this is the address on your luggage tag on the briefcase.”

“Thank you for being so diligent. That briefcase is my office. Without it I’d be lost,” Aaron said. “I’ve been so drugged up I didn’t even think to ask about it when I checked out of the hospital this morning.” Aaron paused and looked at her for a moment, at a loss for words again. Then he reminded himself to be polite. “I’m Aaron Case,” he said introducing himself, “which you’ve probably already surmised from the nametag. Please forgive me for not offering to shake your hand. I’m pretty beat up on the right side.”

“Don’t mention it. I didn’t give you a chance to say how badly injured you are.”

“Well, two cracked ribs, which cause most of the pain. Mild concussion, but the doctor didn’t think it was anything to worry about. Temporary hearing loss, but it seems to have cleared up already,” Aaron paused again. “I was just about to get another dose of the pain remedy, can I get you something?”

“Please, sit down and let me get your medicine for you. Is it in the kitchen?” Pol said moving into the house past Aaron. Boy, she was bold. But frankly, if she would get his pills for him, she could be as bold as she wanted. He sank into his chair in the living room.

“Yes, thank you. They should be on the kitchen counter. Glasses are in the first cabinet to the right of the sink.” She returned a moment later with the pills and the water and a note in her hand. She handed him the glass and pills and while he was drinking glanced at the note.

“Is Theresa your wife? She’s left you a long list of things that you are supposed to eat and do. Here, I’ll trade you.” She took the glass back from him and handed him the note.

“No, Theresa is my mother, sort of,” Aaron chuckled. “My best friend’s wife. You called him last night on my cell phone.”

“Oh, of course. Did he get to the hospital, then?” Pol asked.

“Yes, same problem you had. Went to Lutheran first.”

“My misdirections, I’m afraid.”

“It was really no problem. He was there by the time I could focus on anything but the pain. It was really incredibly kind of you to rescue me last night. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to find you to thank you when I am able to get around a little more easily. Between not being able to hear you very well and the odd hallucinations I was having after the accident, I’m afraid I wasn’t much company.”

“No one expected you to be company last night,” Pol laughed. Aaron dropped into the sound again as he had last night. That was sweeter pain relief than the Vocodin, though it had definitely put him in a state where he could appreciate the laughter, even if he couldn’t join it. “What kind of hallucinations were you having? Do you remember any of it?”

“It’s pretty fuzzy,” Aaron said. “I remember bits and pieces. Like getting inside the front doors of the church, but not getting to them. I remember seeing the bell rope tied up out of reach and deciding I had to get a chair from the sanctuary. That’s when I think I started hallucinating. I thought a stained glass window was moving and talking. I tried to call out to it to let it know I was there. Then I must have passed out again. The next thing I actually remember is that I’d gotten the chair and pulled the bell and passed out again and you were there waking me up. I remember thinking you were an angel and…” Aaron broke off his reminiscence in sudden embarrassment. “I hope you understand, I was not all together,” he explained feebly.

“It’s very sweet of you to think of me as an angel,” Pol laughed again. “It was just a lucky coincidence that I happened to be getting out of my car when the bell rang. We’ve had some problem with kids coming up and waking the community with the bell. That’s why the rope was tied up out of reach. Not impossible to get to, but a discouragement all the same.”

“I’ll say it was. I thought I couldn’t get a call through, but Jack says that he could hear me, so it must have been my hearing that was out, not the cell service.” Aaron rolled his head a little. “You know, I think I should eat something with this pain pill. May I invite you to join me?”

“Why don’t I fix you something. It looks like Theresa has prepared meals that just need to be heated up for you,” Pol said rising and moving once again to the kitchen. Aaron didn’t move to stop her. Instead he called after her.

“Pick something out for yourself as well. Knowing Theresa there is enough food there for me to entertain every night this week and not run out,” Aaron grinned. It was as close as he could come to a laugh without hurting his ribs. “And the note says she’s coming back tomorrow afternoon to restock.”

“They must be great friends,” Pol called back from the kitchen. “You are a very lucky man.”

“I haven’t seen my car yet,” Aaron answered, “but right now I’d have to agree.”

Chapter Four B: Homecoming

2005-11-06T19:59:00.000-08:00

When Aaron first became cognizant of what was happening around him, the drugs had taken hold and he was breathing without tears. He actually found himself taking inventory of his basic body parts to be sure everything was there. A nurse was attaching a drip to his right arm and on his left he focused on a familiar face.

“Jack! Have you been here all along?” Aaron asked, startling the older man.

“Only for the past hour, kid. Looks like it was a waste of my coming out, though, they’re not going to let you go home tonight.” Jack was gruff, but there was an ounce of relief in his voice at hearing Aaron come round.

“Why not? I feel fine now.” Aaron started to push himself up, but collapsed back on the bed with the searing pain from his right ribcage before he could be stopped by the nurse.

“You’ll really want to rest that a while before you start moving too quickly,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am. I hear and obey,” Aaron gasped. He turned his head to look at Jack again. “How did you find out I was here? I couldn’t get a phone signal after the accident.”

“What do you mean you couldn’t get a signal? You called and like to scared Theresa to death when she answered the phone. She nearly fell down the stairs getting a phone to me at the table. All I could hear was you mumbling to yourself about getting to the church. Then it sounded like there was a regular meeting going on, though we couldn’t make out anything that was being said. Sounded like several voices, though. Your phone went dead and about ten minutes later some lady said she called your ICE number and you had been in an accident.”

“ICE,” Aaron said. “Oh, yeah. In Case of Emergency. Damn, that was a good idea wasn’t it?”

“Well, it was this time,” Jack answered. “She said she’d called 911 and an ambulance was coming from Ossian. She figured you’d be coming to Lutheran. So I drove right over to Lutheran, but they didn’t have any record of you. I badgered them until they tracked you down here at Parkview. Then I drove over here. It’s just a little before midnight now.”

“Who was she?” Aaron asked.

“Didn’t say,” Jack scratched at his beard. “Nice voice though.”

“Unbelievable,” Aaron mused. “How am I going to find her?”

“Well, if worse comes to worse, you can lay some money on the table and I’ll send my ace researcher out on the case,” Jack laughed. “Why do you want to find her anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Aaron said. “Maybe she’d like some of these nice drugs they’re feeding me. What is this stuff, nurse?”

“Toad hairs and eye of newt,” the nurse said.

“What was that?” Aaron asked, dumbfounded.

“Toradol on a slow drip,” the nurse responded more clearly. “It takes effect almost immediately and can be released over a period of six to eight hours. Dr. Henry prescribed it right after the first examination. We had to get you through the x-rays first though and you didn’t seem to be conscious of the pain at the time.”

“So, what did the x-rays show?” Aaron asked.

“Dr. will come by to talk about it in the morning,” the nurse said, but it appears to be nothing more serious than a couple cracked ribs.”

“What happened to his hearing?” Jack asked. Aaron couldn’t think of anything wrong with his hearing at the moment.

“Doctor thinks he was in a position to receive a direct shock vibration which temporarily deafened him,” the nurse replied.

“Is that ‘him’ you two are talking about supposed to be me? I don’t feel like I’m deaf.” Aaron snarled a little petulantly.

“I’m sorry Mr. Case. It was apparently temporary.”

“Apparently,” Aaron said.

“So, apparently, was your good humor,” the nurse smiled. “I think we’d better let you get some rest now. I’m just down the hall. If you need anything, your call button is right here by you hand.”

“Okay, kid. Do what the nurse says,” Jack leaned down close so that only Aaron could hear. “She’s bigger than you are, so don’t challenge her to a wrestling match.”

Aaron started to laugh and then gasped again as the motion jabbed at his ribs. He groaned aloud.

“Okay, okay. Sleep sounds like a pretty good idea right now,” he gasped shallowly. “Jack, thanks for coming.”

“Thank your guardian angel, not me,” Jack replied. “See you in the morning.” Jack and the nurse left and Aaron was surprised to find that he was, indeed, ready to sleep.

Morning was streaming through the windows when he woke up and soon thereafter came breakfast, the first and second consultations with the doctor on rotation, a little prodding that elicited a little gentlemanly screaming, and lights shone in eyes, Aaron was released from the hospital and Jack took him home. Theresa was adamant that Aaron stay at their house for a few days, but Aaron begged to be taken home and left to recover where he had his own bed, pillows, and toilet.

As a result, Theresa arrived minutes after Jack and Aaron with armloads of groceries and began cooking. She was determined, she said, that all Aaron would have to do is pull the next container out of the freezer and put it in the microwave.

As for Aaron, when he came off the Tordol drip he switched to oral doses of Vicodin and as long as he didn’t move to rapidly, laugh, or sneeze, he could function slowly. He intended today to spend most of his time sleeping. That was the thing about painkillers. You could always sleep a little more. Jack and Theresa were still puttering around in his kitchen when Aaron pulled a blanket over himself, propped up in his bedroom lounge chair in front of the television and went to sleep.

Chapter Four A: Dazed and Confused

2005-11-06T15:00:00.001-08:00

Aaron shook his head to clear the ringing out of his ears. He had to get out of the car. They always explode after an accident like this. He’d seen the movie. Car goes over an embankment and then boom, everybody is blown up and fried in an explosion.

He fumbled with his seatbelt and realized he still held a piece of the steering wheel in his hand. He tossed it behind him and then managed to release the seatbelt. He pushed himself up and felt the searing pain in his ribs that told him all he needed to know about their condition. His briefcase was jammed into his side below the pain point, so he struggled to push himself away and crawl over the open side of the car with the briefcase clutched in one hand. He lay in the snow beside the road weeping with the pain. He had to get help.

He fumbled in his left pocket for his cell phone and pressed and held 2. Jack would help him. That was the quickest answer. He held the phone to his ear but there was no sound from its earpiece. “Damn! I’ve got to get some help,” he moaned. “I’ve got to try to get to the church.” With the phone still clutched in one hand and the briefcase in the other Aaron leveraged himself up out of the snow. He was disoriented. Still too close to the car. He looked up at the church just 50 yards ahead. Fifty agonizingly long yards. He tried to yell, but his side hurt so badly he couldn’t make a noise. It was so quiet out here that he could hear his own heart beating against the bruised ribcage.

It took forever. One painful silent step at a time up to the church steps. He stood for a moment looking at them, gathering the courage to lift his feet and climb. Absently searching for icy spots so he wouldn’t fall again. At least if he got to the church it might be warm. He wouldn’t freeze to death before anyone found him. What day was today? Friday? There’d be people here on Sunday, surely. He’d last. Man! Jack would be mad if he didn’t show up for poker.

He reached the door and pressed hard on the handle latch. It gave, but the door didn’t budge. Then he realized he was pushing. These doors would open outward. He pulled, gasping in pain again. The door opened and he stumbled into the cold, dark church. Cold, but still warmer than the biting wind outside.

Phone, he thought again. Maybe there’s a landline in the church. He’d look. Soon.

He collapsed on the floor just inside the door. As soon as he rested a bit.

It was a sound that woke him—like a distant voice. He came to slowly trying to reconcile his surroundings with the pain in his side. Slowly the accident came back to him. He was cold. He prised his eyelids open a crack to look at his surroundings. He was lying on a rug on a tile floor. Well, that certainly didn’t help the way he was feeling. He came in here to find a phone. He rolled to his left side and pulled his knees up under him. Then he pushed away with his left hand and made it to his hands and knees. It hurt to put his right hand down, so he just kept pushing with the left until he managed to find his feet under him.

The little foyer had a shelf with a couple hymnals and a few leaflets for a familiar charity on it. There was a wooden offering plate on the rack under it. On the other side of the little foyer was a stand with a guestbook open on it under a small dark window. It must be stained glass. There seemed to be a faint colored glow coming from it. There was not much else except a bell rope, carefully wrapped and hung out of reach. They probably had a problem with kids coming in and pulling on the bell at all hours. But it was a hope. He’d need something to stand on to get it off its hook. But if he could manage to ring the bell, surely someone would come and investigate. They would help him, surely. He just needed a little boost to reach it.

He leaned against the door in front of him and it opened into the sanctuary. He’d find a chair, he was sure, and drag it to the bell rope. Things seemed to move in slow motion. Each inch that the door swung open was another degree of pain in his broken ribs.

It was lighter in the sanctuary. There weren’t lights on anywhere that he could see, but he could make out the shapes of the pews and the aisle up the center. There were no chairs near the door, but there had to be chairs up on the chancel someplace. And it was lighter near the front of the Sanctuary. He would just have to keep walking. The voices seemed to become clearer as he struggled forward. He just couldn’t make out anything they were saying. And he couldn’t pinpoint the location they were coming from.

The pews, he noted, were wooden—not much more than benches really. There weren’t even padded seats. Pity the poor congregation that worshipped here, he thought vaguely. Then again, even lying down on one of these would be better than this walking agony. He shook his head again. A voice had just clearly said, “We can’t waste you on the Senate race. It will be more effective to put you in the governorship if we can.” Aaron jerked his head up. The voices had become a mere murmur again, but they seemed to come from ahead of him. All he could see was the pulpit in the center, a single chair to one side, and a huge stained glass window behind it all.

Funny, the window seemed to glow. That’s what lit the sanctuary so he could see. There must be a light outside on that side of the church to light the stained glass. It was beautiful. Reminded him of something, though it had been so long since he’d been inside a church that he couldn’t recall the Bible scene exactly. There were three glowing figures in the center on a hill. Crouched in darkness below them were three others, obviously lesser figures. Maybe it was an allegory of some sort. Perhaps the three at the bottom were spying on the three in glowing robes.

He heard a snatch of the conversation again. “This isn’t going to be easy for you, but we’re pleased with what you’ve become. You can do it.” There must be something behind the panel beneath the stained glass, Aaron thought. Someone must be here. He abandoned his quest for the chair and decided to call out to the unseen speaker. His voice cracked and when the words came out they seemed muffled, not the cry for help he thought he was issuing. And again, the voices receded into the silence. Aaron struggled forward one last step and had to rest. He sank down on the front pew and looked up at the stained glass. As soon as he caught his breath, he’d get that chair and ring the bell. They wouldn’t ignore him then.

He was hurt worse than he realized, he thought. The figures in the stained glass were moving. They weren’t your typical Biblical figures. Well, one was. It was hard to focus on that one, though. Like it was the light behind the glass and not a figure at all. The other two wore business suits. A fat man and a starched woman. A vague familiarity. Who was he dreaming about now?

When he came to, he was lying on the floor inside the front doors of the church. A woman was kneeling over him with a cell phone in her hand talking to someone. Aaron tried to tell her that there was no cell service out here, but she seemed intent on talking anyway. No, she wasn’t talking—no sound was coming out of her mouth. Just lips moving. He tried to raise up but the pain drove him back to the floor.

She spoke to him, but his ears weren’t functioning correctly. He caught the words “ambulance coming,” and “don’t move.” She kept talking to him, he thought but it was like a bad radio connection with only occasional words coming through the static that was building in his head. His eyes roamed around the foyer. Near his right hand a rope hung down. Next to it was a chair. He had done it! He had gotten a chair and rung the bell. Someone came to save him. He couldn’t remember getting the chair or ringing the bell. Couldn’t remember hearing it ring. But there were strange images still drifting in his memory of a stained glass window that moved and talked.

Lord! He must have banged things up in his head pretty badly. More words were coming through to him as he heard an unmistakable wail of a siren in the distance.

“The ambulance is almost here. It’s a miracle you got out of that car alive. I’d just gotten home when I heard the bell ringing. It’s always meant an emergency for as long as I can remember. Probably a lot longer. You’re going to make now. The ambulance is here. They are going to take care of you.”

Aaron managed to get a few words out of his mouth as the EMTs loaded him onto a stretcher. “Thank you,” he said. “You must be my guardian angel.”

“I’ve been called a lot of things in my career, but never that,” she laughed. It was a beautiful sound. Even through the pain it was beautiful. He closed his eyes and focused on that beautiful sound. When he opened them again, he was in the ambulance and they were closing the door.

Chapter Three C: Accident

2005-11-06T12:38:00.000-08:00

Aaron left the Memorial home and drove out to the interstate. He decided to stop at the truck stop for a quick bite before heading north to Jack’s for the Friday night poker game. While he waited for his food, he opened his briefcase and made a few notes regarding what he wanted to ask Hattie about next week. He labeled the cassette from his recorder and filed it in the row of interviews. Then he pulled out an Indiana State map to look at the area surrounding Hattie’s home town of Uniondale. He made a note to get more information about where the Strongman property was located, but knew that Hattie’s description would probably not match with any local maps. He’d look up the tax records and that would help him identify the parcel. He noted that he passed just a few miles from Uniondale on the way back up to Fort Wayne. He definitely needed to check out the Twelve Oaks before next Friday and maybe snap a couple pictures to show Hattie what it looks like now. Many times having a photograph to look at would jog an entire story out of an interviewee. Aaron put away his briefcase and focused on the Chili and Grilled Cheese he’d ordered. He really couldn’t arrive at Jack’s hungry every week expecting Theresa to feed him.

When he left the Union 76 Truckstop, the wind had picked up. It didn’t look like snow in the sky, but the wind was picking it up off the already piled drifts and scuttling it across the road. The Spider would be cold tonight. He pulled into traffic on I-69 and settled in for the drive. It was fully dark now. Although light later in the day than back in December, it still seemed to be dark early. It wasn’t as bad as on the east coast where it was dark much earlier. That was the one advantage of being on Eastern Standard Time this far west. And it wouldn’t make a bit of difference when the East went on Daylight Saving Time in April. Indiana would stay on Eastern Standard time and be in sync with Chicago for the summer. What a weird state, he mused.

His headlights picked up the highway sign for the next exit. Markle, Rte 224. Uniondale was just a few miles east of here. On impulse, Aaron decided to just drive through and see what was still there. Hattie’s story was still running through his head. He exited, turned right on 224, and headed out toward Uniondale. Five miles out of town the sleepy little village loomed out of the darkness. He could see the steeple of only one church in town and a sign that pointed to St. Mark’s Lutheran Church. He could see the building just off Main Street as he drove through the town. He crossed what appeared to be an abandoned railroad track and a trucking company and was suddenly out of town. Just past the shipping yard on the right was a relic of a building. Aaron could make out in the reflected light from the truck company across the road the words “Grange, est. 1888” over the boarded up door. Bet there was a story behind that, Aaron thought. Then he was in the peculiar Indiana darkness with a howling wind and snow blowing across the road. The farmland looked rich, the houses set well back from the road. Their yard lights did little to lighten the shroud that was broken only by Aaron’s headlights.

He watched the odometer as closely as he did the road. He didn’t want to fly by the turn-off in the dark. There was the first road at one mile out, W 700 N. Indiana had county road laid out like latitude and longitude in the township. Thirty six square miles per township, six equal one-mile sections bounded on each side by a county road labeled with the number of miles from the meridian lines of the county. He was exactly one mile west of the north/south meridian, traveling north on N 100 W. He was seven miles north of the east/west meridian. Pinpoint accuracy. By the time he mentally positioned himself on the map he could see the road sign for W 800 N ahead and slowed down to make the right turn. He was suddenly faced with a steep climb and the he shifted the Spider down into second to accelerate up the hill. He was finally sheltered a little bit from the wind by a woodlot on his left. He breathed a little easier as he could see a single light bulb burning ahead over the sign to the little cemetery on his right. Across the road stood the tiny old stone church.

Just as Aaron focused on the sight, there was a break in the woodland cover and the wind whipped across the front of the car throwing its right front tire into a snowdrift. Aaron fought to regain control. Over the spinning car, but the drift concealed black ice all across the road. He could see the entire accident as though it were occurring in slow motion. The car slipped off the left side of the road onto the steep bank of a drainage ditch. As the car tilted, Aaron leaned to his right pulling on the wheel until he was lying almost over in the passenger seat. He could see the telephone pole approach, strike the bonnet of the car, shatter the windshield, and rip the top of the car off just above his head and the steering wheel out of his hands. What he did not see was the rock that the front of the car slammed into throwing him into the dashboard with a deafening bang.

Chapter Three B: Guardian Angel

2005-11-05T22:06:00.000-08:00

Aaron was in a very good mood as he made his way into the Memorial Home for his weekly visit with Mad Aunt Hattie. This week had gone much better than he ever expected. Janice/Annabelle had met face-to-face with her estranged father. Mike was beside himself with worry about what she would think, how he should act, what to expect. When they met they were as wary as two teenagers on a blind date. You could touch the tension in the air it was so thick. They both asked Aaron to stay with them as they got acquainted, which was a little uncomfortable at first, but he soon slid into a role as facilitator of the conversation, helping it from staying in embarrassing silences for too long at a time and steering it gently away from topics he thought might be too intense for a first meeting.

At the end of the meeting, both were happy that they had met each other at last. Mike wept when Janice told him of her mother’s death. It was plain that even though he currently lived with a mate of ten years, he had never released his intense feelings of love and guilt over his missing wife. But Mike had been clean and sober for a long time and did not fall prey to that common mistake of dry drunks of dropping into endless remorse over what was past. He knew he couldn’t change the past with any number of apologies, so he stuck with the present. There were no explicit contracts between the two of them when the night ended. They both said they’d like to get to know each other better and agreed to meet again on neutral ground over the weekend. Mike made no mention of his intention of making Janice his heir, and for that Aaron was grateful. The acquaintance would progress in its own way now. His job was finished.

The scene that greeted him when he opened Hattie’s door at her invitation to come in was much the same as it had been the week before. The chairs sat comfortably next to each other with a small table shared between the two of them. This week, the decanter of sherry and the glasses were already on the table, however, and Hattie beckoned warmly to him to have a seat and set up his recorder. Once he was settled, she asked him to pour the sherry and said, “What shall we talk about this week, my dear?”

“Well, why don’t we spend some time talking about what you remember of life as a teenager in the 20s?” Aaron asked smiling. It was really a rarity in this day and age to talk with someone who had been around in the roaring twenties and who was old enough at the time to remember something about them.

“Oh, yes. I suppose you want to know all about the Roaring Twenties, don’t you?” Hattie smiled. “Well, you have to understand that in Uniondale, Indiana the didn’t really roar. They sort of meowed.” Aaron nearly spit sherry through his nose at that one and could see that Hattie was smiling at her own joke. “Of course, Meowing Twenties doesn’t really make a good headline, does it?”

“I don’t know about that,” Aaron replied. “I might make that the chapter heading for the decade if that is what it was like in rural Indiana. Surely there were some similarities brought about by prohibition, at least,” he suggested.

“Well, there were no speakeasies in Uniondale. There was a big Methodist church there, and they were tea-totallers anyway—most of them prohibitionists from the start. But there were a fair number of Lutherans as well, and the amount of beer that was brewed in chicken-coops probably made up for any speakeasies that we didn’t have.

“Of course, as teens, it didn’t make that much difference to us. We were all too young to care until prohibition was almost over. And if anything, that made us into a completely separate party in the arguments over prohibition. As teens we didn’t care who drank or didn’t drink as long as we could dance. Now there was an argument that was just waiting to happen. The Methodists and Lutherans would have banded together to prevent the lewd behavior if it hadn’t been for the Baptists joining in the fray. If there was ever anything that could unite a Lutheran and a Methodist it was arguing against a Baptist. When the Baptist minister started preaching regular sermons on how those who danced were lighting their own hellfires and would burn for eternity, the Methodists and Lutherans re-thought their position on the issue. It must not be as sinful as they thought if the Baptists were against it, was the reasoning.

“So, it was in the spring of my sixteenth year that we were allowed to have our first organized dance. It couldn’t be held at any of the churches or the school, just on principle. The firehouse wasn’t big enough. So we held the dance at the Grange. It was a big one-room meeting house with movable benches, so we could stack them against the walls. It was located just outside of town, so Uniondale could still declare that it didn’t allow drinking or dancing. Of course, our parents assumed we’d be having a square dance, but enough of us had radios in our homes by that time that jazz and blues were what we had in mind. Allie Johnson convinced her brothers to slip the family’s Roger’s Radio out of the house and transport it to the Grange just before the dance. Oh, the sound was terrible by any standard you care to name!” Hattie laughed. “But we didn’t care. We had Count Basie in the Grange, and Allie’s parents were at a complete loss when they went to listen to Will Rogers that night they couldn’t find the radio. They were a little simple, though you couldn’t tell by Allie and her brothers. By morning, they’d convinced themselves that they didn’t really have a radio.” Aaron and Hattie were both laughing by the time she’d finished this story. She had a bit of a coughing fit and asked for more sherry. Aaron wasn’t completely certain that the coughing was anything but an excuse to pour more, but he gladly acquiesced to her request.

“Well, tell me, Aunt Hattie, how did boys and girls interact when you were a teen? Did you ever have any boyfriends?” Aaron adjusted the microphone as Hattie leaned her head back on her chair. A far-away look came into her eyes and for a long moment she sat silently. Aaron thought perhaps he had lost her to some internal memory that she wouldn’t put in words, but sat patiently for her to continue. Sometimes if you asked too many questions in these interviews, the interviewee became confused and didn’t know what to answer first, or what the question was at all. At last, with a sigh, Hattie broke the growing silence.

“Oh yes, such a boyfriend,” she breathed. “I’m not going to tell you about him right away. Because I should say that in the country, boys and girls grew up somewhat more quickly than in the city. We had more than enough opportunity to sneak off alone, to meet in the woods, or to just walk over to each other’s homes if the weather was fitting. There were long summer nights catching fireflies when we were little that turned into nights lying on the lawn just gazing up at the stars holding hands as we got older.

“Now don’t you go thinking we were promiscuous and believed in free love or anything. But I remember one time in my teens my grandmother giving a disgusted snort at my appearance and saying that if girl’s skirts got any shorter they’d have two more cheeks to powder.” Aaron nearly lost his sherry again. He’d seen no sign that Aunt Hattie was mad, but she had the assurance of a person who is 95 years old and could say anything she pleased without being judged. “Oh, we were a terror to our parents, and I’m sure they thought we were up to much worse than we were. Children today don’t live with enough animals. We knew the facts of life on the farm before we were in our teens. We’d seen animals in all stages of reproduction from copulation to birth. We understood cause and effect and it took no religious watchdogs to plug our ears when people talked about sex for fear that we’d be corrupted.” Hattie paused and looked directly at Aaron for a moment.

“Now look, I’ve embarrassed you,” she chided.

“No, no, Aunt Hattie. Surprised me, but not embarrassed,” Aaron reassured her, though he could feel a little color rising in his cheeks. It was beginning to appear that Mad Aunt Hattie might give him information that was more blunt and to the point than teens he had interviewed this year.

“Very well. Now if there is any of this that you don’t want to hear, you just say so and I’ll shut my old trap up. But you have to understand that we were young, but we knew what’s what.

“Now you take that dance of ours. There were a lot of couples slipping off for a kiss before the night was over, in spite of the fact that we had a nearly one-to-one relationship of chaperones to kids dancing. But nothing went past the stage of propriety and there weren’t girls being plundered by undisciplined boys. I guess maybe that was a benefit of living in a dry community, but maybe it was just because we all knew each other so well, and knew that one day we’d have our lifelong mates from this group of friends and we didn’t want all our other friends and acquaintances knowing that we’d spread the wealth too broadly in our youth. But, I tell you this because of what happened that night and because you asked me if I had a boyfriend. Well, yessir, I wasn’t always a wrinkled old prune like I am now. I was plenty attractive as a teen.”

“I believe you are beautiful even now, Aunt Hattie,” Aaron felt compelled to interject. “You must have been a knock-out as a teen.”

“Oh, pshaw, young man. The beauty of an old woman comes from inside her, and anyone who sees it has to look there. A sixteen year old girl, on the other hand, well, let’s face it, there really aren’t any ugly ones. Beauty sits on teenagers like dawn on the hilltops. We spent most of our time covering it up, thinking we needed redder lips and rosier cheeks, never realizing that we were beauty queens, every one of us. And the boys! Oh, the boys were beautiful, too. And one boy stood out in my eyes like a bright start on a dark night.

“I’d seen him only twice since that day that he pulled me out of the creek; both fleeting glimpses of him walking through the woods near the Twelve Oaks Church. Once I’d run to try and catch up with him, but he just disappeared. But this night at that dance, I saw him come in. I was dancing with Daniel Ridnaur and I stepped on both his feet. When the music changed he wanted to keep dancing with me, as we’d danced about four numbers prior to that and I think he was getting ready to kiss me. I said, no I needed some lemonade and suggested he dance with Allie for a while.

“I was standing by the punch bowl when he came up to me. Well, really, I was nearly the only one who wasn’t dancing at the moment, so it’s not like he had a great many girls to choose from. He asked me to dance and I turned and fell into his arms. He whisked me around the dance floor to the music and I swear my feet never touched the ground. I was in heaven. Before we knew it, Ben Adsly was ringing the triangle at the door and saying it was 11:00 and we needed to all head home. It wasn’t decent to keep young people up till midnight.

“I stepped out the door with my young man as if he were to escort me home, but my brothers had other ideas about that. ‘Mattilda, they called. Say good night and get over here in the wagon.’ Well, they were only that polite because they were both involved with girls they were trying to get a good night kiss from, whose parents or neighbors were trying to cut out of the herd and corral. But it was my opening to turn to my boy and raise my face to his.

“‘You don’t really know me,’ he said looking in my eyes. ‘Oh, I know you,’ I said. ‘You’re my guardian angel.’ And I kissed him right then and there. ‘Can I call on you?’ he asked. ‘No,’ I said. He looked shocked, but it was nothing to the look he had when I said ‘Meet me at the Twelve Oaks Saturday morning next week at an hour past dawn. We’ll talk about whether you can call on me.’ Why you should have seen the look that came over him then. He grinned so broadly that his face absolutely shone. My brothers started caterwauling then about getting in the wagon and if I didn’t move they’d come carry me there. So I reached up and just touched his cheek, then ran to catch the wagon. I don’t remember anything else about that night; just that I lay in the back of the wagon as my brothers drove us and a few other kids home. I just looked up at the stars and dreamed about my angel.”

Hattie was lost in a dream with her sherry glass halfway to her lips. Aaron smiled. It was not often that he caught an older interviewee in a story that transported her, but it was always a sweet thing to see. He turned off the recorder and packed it away. He stood to leave and reached to touch her hand.

“Aunt Hattie,” he said softly, “I’ll be going now. May I come see you again next week?”

“Oh my dear,” she said coming out of her reverie. “I didn’t mean to chase you away so soon. “But please come again next week. I’ll tell you all about the meeting at Twelve Oaks. You should see that place. I suppose it’s still there, though I haven’t been near it in fifty years. Go north out of Uniondale two miles and then turn right. It’s just at the top of the hill. You’ll love it up there. It is such a sweet, magical place.”

“I’ll do that before I see you next Friday, Aunt Hattie. Thank you for the story you told today and for the sherry,” Aaron said, holding her hand. “’Til next week, then.”

“Next week, dear,” answered Hattie. “Next week.”