Somehow, none of Lindstrom’s colorful history came up when he was vetted for the presidency of Cross College. Trevathan snorted as he scanned an editorial in the Omaha World Herald that questioned whether Lindstrom had been vetted at all. Heads were now rolling in the upper echelons of higher education for that total failure of due diligence, and rightly so.
Though Lindstrom had a pretty thin resume for academia, he clearly could raise money, charm trustees and work the media. At the time, Cross College was on life support, and Lindstrom poised himself as the cure for what ailed it. Trevathan and several other department heads opposed Lindstrom’s hiring in favor of more experienced candidates, but a star-struck board of trustees gave the job to Lindstrom.
In an effort to get to know his staff, Lindstrom conducted an awkward faculty dinner at his house shortly after he was installed at Cross. After an exorbitant steak dinner with several bottles of wine, Lindstrom’s wife, a lovely, demure woman who by Trevathan’s lights was always in her husband’s shadow, excused herself to supervise work study students as they cleaned up. Lindstrom showed the college department heads his sizable collection of expensive timepieces.
Trevathan had asked if he liked one brand of watch over another.
“Not really. It’s more about time itself,” Lindstrom said. “Quality timepieces are custodians of the minutes slipping past. I’m acutely aware that time is short for all of us, and we shouldn’t waste a second of it doing anything we don’t want to do.”
Lindstrom stared, gimlet-eyed at a prize vintage Longines Grosjean Freres silver watch from the late 1880s.
“Haply, for I am black, and have not those soft parts of conversation that chambers have, or for I am declined into the vale of years - yet that’s not much,” he said with not a trace of ridiculousness.
Trevathan thought at the time that Lindstrom’s misappropriation of the quote from Othello was merely a clumsy attempt to appear scholarly by a man who had few of the academic credentials of those he supervised. Now it was clear that a man who had lost nearly two years of his life behind bars had a different reason to fixate on time, though it was his heart, not his skin, that was black.
“Fort Jefferson? That’s awfully damn close to the Marquesas,” Pilate said.
Taters steered the boat out of the harbor, his cap threatening to fly off his head in the wind. He pulled it down tighter on his head. “Well, we’ll be going the long way ‘round just to prevent any misunderstandings on the part of the authorities.”
“Taters, they’re not following us, anyway. They know they scared the shit out of us and we’re harmless,” Pilate said, handing him a beer.
“I know, but I promised myself I’d be careful.”
“You think we’ll ever know what was in that Bigfoot?”
The pair had found a secreted narcotics-smuggling sub – known locally and colloquially as a Bigfoot – during Pilate’s previous venture in the Keys. The discovery nearly got them killed by pirates and definitely made them persons of interest with the Department of Homeland Security.
“Probably the late, great Bum Farto,” Taters said, cackling.
“Excuse me?”
“Never mind. It’s a Conch thing.”
“Okay…” Pilate said, scratching his head.
“John, I hope to shout I never find out what was in that thing.” Taters said, his face darkening.
“I suppose so,” Pilate said. “But one of these days I’d like to know.”
“Nothing good can come of it.”
“I think it was the soul of Marcellus Wallace,” Pilate said.
“Who the hell is that?”
“He was in Shane.”
Taters grimaced. “Whatever.”
They were quiet for a while, nothing but the sound of the TenFortyEZ’s engines and the wind to break their serenity.
“It was good seeing Jordan,” Pilate said. “She looks well.”
“Thanks. She is and does look it.”
They were quiet until they reached an area east of Fort Jefferson. In the distance, Pilate made out the walls of the Civil War-era fort – a citadel of war that never saw action. Used as a military prison for captured deserters, it also had held four men convicted of complicity in President Lincoln’s assassination, the most famous being Dr. Samuel Mudd.
“That’s the Civil War’s Gitmo,” Taters said, dropping the anchor overboard.
“Beats Andersonville, I’d guess,” Pilate said, grabbing a fishing pole.
“True.”
The men cast their lines, turned on the CD player and opened more beers. Colin Hay’s “Fisherman’s Friend” played quietly. Pilate mentally kicked himself for missing his chance to meet Hay on the Today set.
“I’d like to live this life,” Pilate said.
“Why dontcha?”
“Kate doesn’t want to raise the kids out here,” Pilate said. “Well, over there,” he pointed in the direction of Key West.
“I get it,” Taters said. “Raising kids in a tourist town has its downsides. But it has its upsides, too.”
“I’ll have to enlist your aid to convince Kate of that.”
“Anytime.”
They were quiet again, the sun reflecting on the whitecaps.
Kate checked her eyes in the rearview mirror and wiped away a stray bit of mascara. She maneuvered her bulging belly from behind the wheel and walked up the path to Trevathan’s house. It seemed ages ago that this house was sanctuary for her and Kara while John endured the elements to bring help. Trevathan had sat up all night, lights off by the fireplace, a gun held in his lap, ready to defend them with his life.
She knocked. A few moments later, Trevathan peeked through the curtains, sighed and opened the door.
“Marta. She couldn’t keep her mouth shut, could she?” he said, his voice raspy, as if he had laryngitis.
Kate hugged his neck, her beach ball belly pressing into the old man’s thin frame.
“Lung cancer,” he said, matter-of-fact.
Kate’s lip trembled and tears worked in her eyes.
“Please don’t be upset,” he said. “Everybody’s gotta die of something,” he said, his usually roving glass eye almost perfectly tracking with his real one as he looked at Kate.
“I’m sorry,” she said, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.
“You’re the toughest gal I know,” he said. “I certainly didn’t expect any boohooing outta you,” he said, trying to make her smile.
“Hormones I’m sure. Pregnant ladies cry all the time,” she said, reaching across the kitchen table and grasping his hand. “Why else would I be crying over a mean old coot?”
He smiled and patted her hand.
Kate erupted in a full out spasm of tears for a moment, then inhaled a deep breath, as deep as her crowded diaphragm would allow, and shook her head slightly.
“You done?” he asked.
She nodded rapidly.
“I have some time left,” he said. “And I would like to enjoy it without a lot of fuss, so no telling anybody, okay?”
“Okay,” she said. “Not even John?”
“God no, that boy has enough problems. At least not now.” he said. “Tea? Coffee?”
She shook her head.
“Me neither. He stood up carefully and walked to the counter. From a cabinet above the sink he took down a coffee mug. From beneath the sink, he produced a bottle of Johnny Walker Red. He poured a couple fingers and sat back down at the table.
“Not like it’s gonna kill me,” he said, sipping.
“Do you have any family?”
“My family died with my wife,” he said. “You and that a-hole husband of yours…sorry, Kate. You and John and your little girl and that wee one in your belly are my family.” He looked into his coffee cup.
Kate started to well up again, but fought the tears back.
“Whatever you need…”
“I need you to just keep mum about it until I take my official leave from work,” he said. “Th
en any help you can spare in helping me out until I go to her,” he pointed at his wife’s photo in the other room on the mantel, “would be appreciated.”
“Of course,” Kate said, nodding at his mug of booze. “I wish I could have some of that.”
He nodded. “Back in old days that wouldn’t have been frowned upon.”
Kate chuckled. “Yes, along with smoking to lower the baby’s birth weight and using forceps to hurry the baby along.”
“Yes. Progress is a good thing. The world keeps on turning, things change, and sometimes it’s even for the better.”
“So, how long…” Kate stopped herself.
“Three to six months,” he said, again matter-of-fact. “But I guarantee you I’m not going anywhere until I meet your new little one.”
“I’d like that,” she said.
“I know Grif’s his granddad, but I sure would be honored to pretend.”
Kate took his bony hand back in hers. “Grif’s his granddad on Rick’s side. John’s folks are the grandparents on his side. You’re his granddad on mine.”
Trevathan’s eyes welled up. He finished off the Scotch and smiled, snuffling his nose with his free sleeve.
They chatted a while longer, and as Kate started to make moves to leave, Trevathan asked her to wait a moment longer.
“Kate,” his good eye looked deeply into hers. “Listen, John has some weird ideas in his head about Lindstrom.”
“Don’t I know it,” she said.
“Well, as much as it pains me to say so, he may be right about a lot of it.”
Trevathan showed her the files on Lindstrom’s criminal past.
“Oh my god, I knew he was a crooked jerk, but violent?” she said, her hand on her belly. “Do you think he - I mean, do you think he might have…”
“That he might have shot at John?” He made a face like he was trying to force down something hard to swallow. “I don’t know about Lindstrom doing it - kind of tough to do when you’re dead. But I do think John may have been right about somebody taking a shot at him during the race.”
“What? Are you kidding?” Kate was half out of her chair.
“Now hold on a minute,” he said. “Just listen. Okay?”
Kate sat back down.
“I talked to Deputy Lenny the other day, and he told me that he and Sheriff Welliver went out to talk to a certain Hilmer Thurman. Hilmer is our dear departed criminal-in-chief Ollie Olafson’s cousin. Down from Minnesota.”
“He’s here?”
“Yes,” Trevathan said. “He’s got his own criminal enterprise, and I think he’s moved in to fill the void left by Ollie’s death.”
“And he shot at John?”
“Lenny said they outright questioned Hilmer on it out at the Brown Betty on US-75. Seems Hilmer’s family runs that watering hole now.”
“Why did the sheriff do this?” Kate asked.
“Pressure from state police. I think Petersen got on his ass about it, and Welliver didn’t want to look dirty or incompetent. Remember his campaign slogan? Welliver Delivers! Ha. So, he’s making inquiries.”
“What did Hilmer say?”
“Oh he confessed,” Trevathan said, coughing. “Sorry. No, he didn’t confess. He gave some smart-ass answers but basically, according to Lenny, the guy has a tight alibi. And really, Pilate and former Sheriff Scovill did him a giant favor opening up this territory for the Thurmans.”
“So why do you think somebody shot at John, then?”
“Well, because Thurman said he thought somebody probably shot at John, too.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Who?” Kate said. “Who did Thurman say shot at John?”
“That he would not say,” Trevathan said, his cough petering out.
“Lindstrom?”
He shook his head. “Man’s dead, Kate. If somebody shot at John, I think it might be one of Ollie’s last holdouts. One of his Cross Cavaliers.”
“But they’re all dead, and Grif’s in jail.”
“Are they all dead? Are you sure?”
“Well, I don’t know who it could be,” Kate said. “And whoever they are, they’re a lousy shot if what John says is true that the shooter fired several times and missed.”
“Old people’s hands tend to shake, Kate.”
“Who can it be?”
“I went to the library,” he stood and walked over to a storage ottoman in the living room. He retrieved a book and came back in the kitchen. “I dug up the high school yearbook from ’63.”
He opened it to a bookmarked page and stabbed his finger at the photo caption of the Cross Cavaliers Social Club. “Scovill’s in jail. Grif too. Olafson’s dead. Kennedy moved away and died. That leaves Mostek. Perry Mostek.”
“Perry Mostek? He owns the Mercantile,” she said.
“Yup. His momma was a witness to the 1963 shooting of the Cross College president, too. Cancer got her a few years back. Remember when that tornado hit your family mortuary? Picked up Dottie Mostek’s casket and planted her, pretty as a picture, in a cornfield.”
“I remember,” Kate said, shuddering. “Nobody would believe it if it weren’t true, as they say.”
“There is a whole lot of that going around in Cross Township,” Trevathan said, shaking his head.
“Anyway, Perry Mostek has to be in his late sixties,” she said.
“Well, a lot of capable people are,” Trevathan smiled weakly.
“Well, you know what I mean,” she said. “So you think Perry Mostek might have taken a shot at John? Why would he? I mean, he wasn’t implicated in the death of that boy in 1963.”
“Yeah, but the stink rubbed off on him. Perry’s a proud man. I think he feels the whole conspiracy John figured out hastened Dottie’s death. When John picked that scab off again it besmirched his mom’s memory…or maybe it just pissed him off because he thinks it’s what hastened her death. Just a feeling. He’s a little disturbed if you ask me. Kind of guy who wears Bermuda shorts in December, if you get my drift.”
“Will this damned conspiracy ever die?” Kate said, staring at the young fresh faces in the black and white photo.
“Oh, everything dies…eventually,” Trevathan said, stifling a cough.
“I think all I caught today is a sunburn,” Pilate said, yanking the pole out of the blue Gulf waters.
“Yeah, it’s dusk,” Taters said. “I guess we should head back in.”
“Okay,” Pilate said, glancing at a speedboat passing by a few hundred yards away. “Besides that asshole’s wake is going to beat us up.”
“Yeah. Weigh anchor and I’ll get this baby fired up,” Taters said, heading to the steering console.
Pilate leaned over the rail and pulled on the nylon anchor rope. It didn’t come up right away. He tugged at the rope. “Damn it,” he said.
“What?” Taters called over his shoulder.
“Damn anchor’s hung up on…” Pilate yanked back harder, pulling himself fully upright. Then he felt a sting on his left bicep as if he had been hit by a jagged rock thrown with great force. He clamped a hand over his arm, dropping the anchor rope. “Holy shit! That hurts!”
“Jesus, John, get down!” Taters said, knocking Pilate to the deck. “You’re shot.”
Kate had a few minutes before she needed to pick up Kara from school - time enough to pick up a gallon of milk.
The tiny mercantile wasn’t much bigger than the average big-city convenience store, but it had everything most folks needed. Kate picked up a gallon of milk and on impulse, a package of Oreos. With Pilate out of town, she might actually get a couple.
She placed the items on the small counter beside an old cash register that featured green digital-clock style numbers on a small black screen. No fancy scanner, no bar codes. A girl who looked vaguely familiar to Kate rang her up.
“Hi, Miss Nathan…I mean, Mrs. Pilate,” she said.
“Hi, umm—”
“Jacey. Jacey Mostek,” she said.
“Right,”
she said. “You were in my class.”
“Freshman year,” she said, then looked at the register, punching in numbers. “I took a break.”
“I understand,” she said.
“Besides, Gampy needed some summer help here at the store, so I just figured I’d hang around through Christmas. Come back to school in January.”
“Well I hope you do, Jacey.”
She nodded. “Five eighty-three.”
Kate opened her purse and gave her six dollars. Behind Jacey was a framed photo of an elderly woman with a proud bearing.
“Who is that?” Kate said, gesturing at the photo.
Jacey looked. “Who? Oh. That’s my great grandma. Dottie. She died before I was born. Gampy just worships her. Talks about her a whole lot.” She rolled her eyes.
“I see. Handsome woman. You look like her.”
“Thanks,” she said, blushing.
“So where’s your grandfather these days? I hardly ever see him.”
“Oh, he’s around. Lately, he’s been staying in the office upstairs or taking one of his long walks,” she rolled her eyes again.
“Long walks?”
“Oh sure,” she smiled. “He gets kind of…” she leaned in and whispered, “Grumpy-assed. I call him Grumpy Ass Gampy.”
Kate smiled. “So he’s grumpy and takes long walks?”
“Yeah. Guess so,” she shrugged. “He just slams the door to his office, stomps downstairs and says he’s going to go take a walk.”
“And that’s been lately?
“Yeah. Ever since the mess your husband started…” her freckled cheeks reddened. “Well, I mean, that is…”
“No, I understand,” she said. “So your grandfather was upset about it?”
“Well,” she became wary. “He was friends with the…the mayor.”
The store door opened, a bell attached to the handle jingling as a man of average height, balding on top with steel grey hair on the sides, strode in. He had the same proud bearing of his mother, Kate noted.
“Hi, Gampy,” Jacey said.
“Jacey,” he said. He looked at Kate and produced a brief smile. “Miss Nathaniel.”
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