Even When You Win... Read online

  The island had free board all around the sides and back of the plumbing and there were seven bar stools pulled up and ready.

  To the left was a large sunken family room that was all glass around two sides, and a 50-inch television screen dominated the only other wall. The glass walls reached another story above the main floor, hinting that there was an upstairs access I hadn’t noticed as we walked in.

  The entire back of the house, overlooking a fenced and meticulously manicured backyard, was a patio, and half of that was enclosed as a three-season porch. Then I realized that the final third of the long glass wall included a door to the porch.

  Jan finally broke our stunned reaction to the home. “My god, Ed, this is fantastic.”

  Ed beamed at the comment. “We’re really proud of this. I have pictures of what it looked like when we bought it, about twenty years ago. We had a lot of help, but other than inspecting the electrical and plumbing we did it all.

  “Rita designed it. We took her ideas to a building store up in Iowa, and put the plans into a computer program they had at the time, and it spit out specs and estimates... we then started saving, and when we could, we bit off a chunk and made it a summer project.”

  “When did you finish?” Jan asked.

  He seemed a bit flustered by the question, but after a short hesitation he said, “Well, we aren’t really sure we’re finished. We haven’t done anything in a few years other than live in it, but those plans have always included some other stuff that we haven’t done yet.”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh,” he actually shuffled his foot a bit across the rug before answering, “Well I’ve always wanted a pool room...”

  “You might want to find room for a pool, first,” Jan said with some awe in her voice.

  “Oh, no, I mean like billiards... I love pool and snooker and stuff, and we actually have plans for extending the house out past the bedrooms to accommodate a recreation room on the ground floor and a couple more bedrooms over it.”

  I laughed, “Well, you do have a large family...”

  “Right now we use a rented motor home to accommodate everyone during holidays like Christmas.”

  At that moment the door to the porch opened, “Ed? I thought you were going to bring everyone out to me, but you stopped, why?”

  “You must be Rita,” Jan stepped forward with her arms outstretched. “I’m Jan; we talked on the phone...”

  “Of course, welcome.” The women hugged and then Rita turned to me, “And you’re Jim Stanton all right. I remember you well. I was a freshman and you were a senior when we dated that time. I remember being ready to faint when you came to pick me up, but, mostly I remember you being so kind and polite – like you might treat your sister. I got home knowing that we weren’t going to be an item. I’ll bet you never thought about me again. When we passed in the hall you always smiled and said hi, just friendly like.”

  I reached out to shake her hand, “I remember our date now; we went to a movie. I remember that I thought I might be a bit too old for you, and I knew I was going to move away and never really come back. But it’s sure my pleasure to see you now.”

  She ignored my hand and stepped in to give me a hug.

  Ed cleared his throat, “We’re so grateful you came. Can I serve anyone anything to drink?”

  “We’re fine,” Jan said quickly, “don’t bother.”

  “It’s no bother, really.”

  “I have dinner in the works, but it’ll be a while yet,” Rita turned to Jan, “Would you have a glass of wine with me? I usually have one before dinner.”

  “That would be great,” Jan said with a smile, and the two headed for the kitchen. Ed gave me the hands up shrug that obviously meant he couldn’t begin to fathom how women operated, and I knew we had that in common if nothing else.

  “I’m a scotch guy,” he said to me. “Not that single-malt stuff, just Pinch; I’d quit drinking the stuff if I could keep that taste on my tongue without it, but I have beer, wine, other cocktail stuff?”

  “I’m fine right now, but I do drink beer and other stuff,” I said with a smile, “but right now I just want to listen and pay attention. I need to hear what’s new, and what you are thinking I can do to help you.”

  Ed led the way into a den that looked like it could be a satellite of the public library. He went to a cupboard behind the desk, opened the door and revealed a small wet bar with a tiny refrigerator. He grabbed a couple of ice cubes and poured a small scotch over them. He turned with a self-deprecating smile, “I find a pinch of Pinch calms me when I’m nervous.”

  “You don’t look all that nervous to me, Ed.”

  “Years of practice pay off, I guess.”

  “Really?”

  He waved towards one of the overstuffed chairs that braced an octagonal coffee table in front of a miniature wood-burning fireplace. The room was quiet and still. Sunlight streamed through a window behind the desk. Dust motes danced in the rays. I noticed all this while I sank into the comfort. The silence dragged into a minute or more and I didn’t find it uncomfortable. I studied the rows of books on my side of the fireplace and saw an eclectic spectrum of popular and classic fiction, and not for the first time, I wished I had spent more time reading some of those titles.

  “Jim,” Ed said softly, as if he were interrupting my conversation with his library.

  I smiled at him as warmly as I could, “This is a great room.”

  He beamed proudly. “I designed it and built it myself – of course not the plumbing or electrical, but I pounded all the nails. It took all one summer, working weekends and nights.”

  “That’s impressive.”

  “My golf game suffered, I can tell you. But I wanted a place truly my own. I clean it, stock it and no one enters without an invitation. It’s my hideaway.”

  I found that a bit strange, but said nothing.

  “I bet you think that sounds reclusive, even eccentric, but you have to understand that I worked at my office up to eighty hours a week at a time when I had five teenagers in this house... believe me, I saw that coming, and I built this retreat to make sure that I could be the man Rita and the kids expected me to be when I wasn’t in here.

  “I didn’t hide in here, I recovered. Sometimes it only took a few minutes until I found my balance and could go on.”

  That made sense to me, and I said so. “But, ‘nervous?’”

  He smiled sadly again, and even nodded, “I never sat down and charted how I wanted my career in business to work out. I always knew I was great with numbers, and in school, I found the concept of profitability to be so apparent I couldn’t understand how others missed it. The accounting part was all me, but I never thought I’d end up being the financial head of a multi-million dollar corporation with more than three thousand employees in seven states.

  “I never saw myself being the public spokesman of that company, representing it before Congress, the Department of Transportation in Washington or even in Jefferson City. I never saw myself sitting at a table with the president of the Teamsters, or even sitting on the local school board.

  “I moved here, started building our life, and found myself living outside my comfort zone almost every day... now this happens, and you’re here and I’m calling on every bit of my background and training to keep from sobbing and wringing my hands.

  “Your being here with me in this room helps a lot.”

  I sat there, thinking about how far my newspaper career had gone beyond anything I had ever contemplated when I was in the Navy or college, and while I had never contemplated some kind of “comfort zone,” I found his perspective intriguing.

  I mentally shook myself like a wet dog, and said, “You have any more of that Pinch?”

  He bounced out of his chair, “How do you take it?”

  “Yours looked perfect.”

  He handed me the drink, and I handed him my wallet, open to photos. He took it as I started to explain, “That’s Judy, my pointer.
She takes the place of a child in our family. Behind that is Sara, my oldest. She’s a costume artist headquartered in the Twin Cities and she travels with a theater group all over the world. The next one is of my son, Jeremy, and his wife. They live in Upstate New York. Jeremy used to manage a Radio Shack store, but now he’s running his own technical support business. They provide services to companies all over the world who have found that they prefer speaking English to American technicians.

  “They are expecting their first child this fall.”

  “Sara is single?” Ed asked.

  “Playing the field is more like it,” I smiled. “She’s the kind of woman who doesn’t think just any man would make her life complete; she’s taking the pulse of the market, I think.”

  “Are your children happy?” He asked.

  “As far as I know.”

  “That’s what I would have said until this,” he said, rising from his chair.

  He went to his desk and opened a file drawer. He came back with a hanging folder and handed it to me. “This changed everything.”

  I opened the file and found two sheets of paper. The first sheet I encountered was an organizational chart that represented his immediate family. I looked a question at him...

  He put his hands in that palm up gesture again, “What can I say? It’s who I am...”

  I went to the second sheet, and it was a plain piece of white paper stapled to an envelope. I read it without touching it.

  Ed –

  Congratulations on your big win. It could be amazing for your entire family if you pick the right person to follow you in the prize line, but if you can’t figure out which of your grandchildren to bless, I’ll thin the field one at a time until you get it right.

  You need to announce your decision to the ATS folks on 7/1 – you had better start narrowing down your choice and telling your family publicly, or I’ll start narrowing it for you – one grandchild at a time.

  Obviously, calling in the authorities will trigger the culling process immediately...

  I carefully turned the sheet over to make sure there was nothing else on it, and then I looked at the envelope, again, touching it only at the corners to avoid messing up fingerprints or other evidence. I noticed first that the envelope had never been stamped or addressed. The front of the envelope was simply marked, “Ed – Confidential.”

  I looked at him, “In your mailbox?”

  “No,” he shook his head slowly. “I found it right here on my desk.”

  My first thought was a silent, “Ouch!” but I tried to hide that. “Who all was here at that time?”

  “Rita and me.”

  “I know this is small town Middle America; do you folks lock your doors at night? When you’re both gone?”

  He shook his head, “Only when we’re going to be gone overnight. We have motion detectors on the yard lights all around the house; we don’t keep much in the way of money or valuables in the house; my guns are in a walk-in safe downstairs, locked whenever I’m not using it. The spare key is in the safe deposit box at the bank along with most anything that would be hard to replace if we had a robbery or a fire.”

  I nodded as I listened. He was doing all the things you’d expect from a professional bean counter.

  “Personal protection in the bedroom?”

  He smiled a little at the corner of his mouth. “Nine millimeter Glock.”

  “Rita trained on it?”

  “Deadly at close range.”

  I nodded in appreciation.

  “Conceal and carry?”

  He shook his head. “Never felt the need. I’m not that paranoid.”

  I started a quip, “It’s not...”

  He interrupted, “I know, but this is Elliotsville, Missouri, and nobody’s ever been really after me.”

  At that moment, Rita poked her head into the room, “Dinner, as they say, is served, guys.”

  Chapter 7

  We had a nice evening with the Sweets, and were back in our room by 10:30. Jan had just crawled into bed and turned out the lamp when our phone rang.

  “It’s Ed,” he said in a quiet voice. “I’ve got another message.”

  “What’s the gist of the note?” I asked as I propped myself up in bed.

  “Instructions on how to notify my family about my ‘heir.’”

  “Instructions?”

  “And a deadline.”

  “Is this something you have to react to right now?”

  “Er... No, not right now. But. I have to put an ad in the newspaper a week from Thursday. I don’t know when I have to have it into the paper, but he wants it in that edition next Thursday.”

  “Listen. Let’s meet first thing in the morning, and go over the note and then maybe we can get some idea of a strategy.”

  “Great; Rita and I will be ready for you anytime after, say, nine?”

  “Perfect. See you in the morning, and, Ed, try to sleep. We’ll deal with this. Okay?”

  “Thanks, Jim. See you in the morning.”

  I explained what I’d heard to Jan, and she was musing about what that could mean when I drifted off into my regular, dreamless sleep.

  When I awoke it was just getting light around the drapes in the room, and Jan was plastered to my side, dead to the world. I gently removed myself and made my way to the bathroom where I had left walking togs the night before. Dressed but disheveled I stuck my key card into my shorts and headed for the lobby.

  Walking, as I practice it, is a continuation of an enchantment with and dedication to the tenets of t’ai chi chuan. The timeless forms that make up my daily workout require that I concentrate on the minutest of details in body position, flexibility and timing. My workout consists of fifteen minutes of stretching, then fifteen minutes of walking, jogging or running, followed by fifteen minutes of t’ai chi forms, then alternating exercise and t’ai chi periods until it ends, about two hours later with fifteen minutes of stretching.

  As I made my way along the Chariton River, I came to a park with bike paths and regularly spaced workout stations. I used them as designed and ran into no other morning people as I made the two-mile circuit, and then returned to our room.

  “It’s about time,” Jan scolded as I let myself in. “It’s almost eight.”

  “Relax; I’ll take a quick shower and we’ll be there by nine. If it was across town it wouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes.

  Chapter 8

  Ed met us at the door on Tuesday, and reached out to me with the note.

  “Ed, we should have talked about this last night. How have you handled this?”

  “Just by the corners, like you did; same with the envelope.”

  “Good man. Lay it on the table, and I can read it.” When I was done, I leaned back just in time to take a cup of coffee from Rita. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “Breakfast will be ready in a minute.”

  Ed couldn’t wait, “So, what do you think?”

  “Where did you find this? On your desk again?”

  “No, it was in the mail box with the rest of the mail; I was so anxious about your coming yesterday, I forgot to get the mail. Then, after you left, I went out there, and there it was. I called you right away.”

  “Let’s eat and then talk.”

  “Talk about what?”

  “First of all, I need to know why you haven’t any faith in anyone in the legal profession around here. You need professional help. I don’t know any police officers or prosecutors in this state, but I’ve always felt that the vast majority of those I’ve known in every state I’ve lived in are to be trusted and relied upon. Why not here?”

  “You read the first note. If I call them in, this nut starts killing my grandkids.”

  “I understand completely why he doesn’t want you working with the law, but that doesn’t explain why you haven’t taken any one of them into your confidence. If they know the score, they’re not likely to broadcast their involvement.”

  Ed sat there for a mi
nute looking as if he were pouting, and then I recalled the same look from our high school days – I’d seen it on him once while he was taking a test: He was thinking.

  “I really only know the sheriff from church; he’s a good man. He’s been here in our home, and I respect him, but I don’t have any faith in the people who work for him. The only other person in law enforcement I know is the county attorney, and we’re not friends...”

  “What about the FBI?”

  “In Elliotsville?”

  Rita, who had taken the day off from summer school, was setting the table around us, and Jan looked up from buttering toast, “Jim, I’ll bet you know an FBI agent who could give us some guidance in this matter.”

  I was stunned for a minute, and Ed asked, “What’s that?”

  “Just the latest example of how stupid I can be. I have a, I guess you’d have to call him a friend, who is an FBI agent in Washington state...”

  “You have his cell and office phone numbers in your speed dial, remember?” Jan said in a teasing voice.

  “Do I?”

  “Unless you deleted them in some unnatural fit of neatness...”

  Ray Jensen, out of the Bellingham regional office of the FBI, answered his cell phone with his usual abbreviated style, “Jensen.”

  “Ray, this is Jim Stanton and I need to talk with you about a problem a friend of mine is having in Missouri. I thought that you might be able to connect me with someone out here who could help.”

  “Stanton, the FBI is in every phone book in the land; just call ’em up.”

  “Normally, that would be easy, but in this case if the wrong people accidentally learned about the call a grandchild or two could be murdered.”

  With Jensen, and it seems every police person I come in contact with, there isn’t much in the way of phone manners or chit chat. “You’re in Missouri now?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll call you at... it’s after seven here so it’s after nine there, I’ll call you at noon your time.” And with that he hung up.