The Next Cool Place

by Dave Balcom

  “That’s truly one tough lady, you know? Sounds from both of you, she had little choice. She saved your ass. That Buchanan woman was nuts, I think.”

  “Your logic is sound, but I’m not sure how that’s going to stand up. Killing somebody never gets easy for a normal person, even in combat… It takes some time to adjust.”

  65

  By Friday, the Kalkaska County District Attorney, Fish and several staff had signed off on our story. We had signed our statements. They had brought back a finding of “self defense” in the shooting of Charlotte who was still hanging on in critical condition in a Grand Rapids hospital under lock and key.

  Every newspaper in the state had the whole story on Page 1, even the Record. Julie had gotten to the scene minutes after Fish, and I had given her the details as they were, and she’d remade the Record’s front page.

  The story was making news and headlines across the country; the Record was being cited as the source in most cases, a real feather in the weekly newspaper’s cap.

  Other than that, things had been pretty quiet on Thursday. It bothered me that Jan didn’t ask to read the story when the paper came out, and then she told me quietly that she might never again read such a story.

  We went for a silent walk on Thursday afternoon. She didn’t say anything, and I still couldn’t hear much. After that, I had made a call and with Lawton’s assistance arranged to have a State Police psychologist come visit Friday afternoon.

  “She’s suffering a little post-traumatic stress, but believe me, she’s a very tough-minded woman,” the doctor told me after their visit. “Intellectually, she understands that she did what she had to do. She has no sympathy for the woman she shot, just a disdain for her and the people who forced this whole situation upon her.”

  I sat silent for a few minutes, and the doctor cocked her head a bit. “How about you, are you going to be all right?”

  I shrugged at first. “I’m not having any real trouble with this, at least not yet. But I care deeply about Jan.

  “This whole ordeal was about the issue of toughness, you know? Mickey thought he was a tough guy. Ricardo, Ron, Ray – hell all of them – thought they were the baddest asses in the universe, and they were just completely absorbed with proving over and over again how tough they were.”

  I went silent again, processing. She sat patiently, listening to my rant.

  I picked up the thread again. “Shit. They knew nothing about what toughness really is. I don’t think I’d ever figured it out before, either.” I nodded to the next room where Jan was waiting.

  “That’s toughness. I mean, I’ve been trained, albeit a long time ago, to be capable and dangerous, but her? She doesn’t live in that world; hadn’t even visited it before.” I shook my head. “But when the chips were down, she responded appropriately and without hesitation – that’s really a show of toughness, I think.

  “Now, in the aftermath, she’s simply to lick her wounds, adjust to the fact that tonight’s behavior is part of her too, just like her music and her business sense; just a part of the package she never knew was there… I just hope she can come to grips with it.”

  The doctor reached out and patted my hand. “I think she’ll be just fine. She just needs some time. You’re right, she’s real tough.”

  I asked, “Can she return to work at her newspaper?”

  The doctor thought for just a second. “I think that would be perfect for her right now. She needs to return to the routine of her life.”

  At my suggestion, the psychologist and I went back to visit with Jan, and I shifted the conversation to “what’s next,” and the doctor picked up right on cue.

  Later that night, sitting on the glider on Big Mike’s back porch, Jan put her head on my shoulder. “When’re you going home?”

  “I thought tomorrow or Sunday. Can you manage?”

  “What, at the newspaper? Sure. We might e-mail you a story or two for editing, but probably not even that. But as for myself…”

  She turned her head up and kissed me gently on the cheek, “I’m sure I can manage, but I’m also sure I don’t want to. I know I need to return to my stable routine, but I’m already missing you.”

  I hugged her to me, and put my chin on the top of her head and breathed in the scent of her hair. “I know,” I whispered, “I know.”

  But my mind wasn’t turning off the lingering questions that seemed to swirl around the events of the past 72 hours.

  “Have you had any thoughts as to where those two could have been hiding after they escaped on the way to Cadillac?”

  Jan didn’t answer right away, but finally admitted that she hadn’t really given it much thought. “But I did wonder how they came here? I never saw another car.”

  A small bulb went off in the way-back reaches of my mind. “I never heard a car had been recovered, either. I think I want to ask Fish or Lawton about that. Can you reach my phone?”

  At that same instant, Big Mike stepped out of the kitchen onto the porch. He had what appeared to be another 9 millimeter automatic in his right hand. “Don’t make that call, Jim.”

  My jaw hurt from my gaping reaction. “Mike?”

  “Stanton, you’ve been just as upsetting as Buchanan promised. He told everyone who would listen that the great investigator Jim Stanton would wreak havoc on all of us, but we killed him anyway, and here you are, and havoc has been truly achieved.

  “Now it’s time for me to tie up these two last strings. Frank Santiago, recently a guest in Jackson State Prison, is outside, waiting to take me to my new future, but first I must deal with you two.”

  His voice changed a bit. “There’s really no choice, because left to your musings, you’ll eventually instigate an investigation of the top floor of this old inn, and find the last living space for our two culprits.

  “I’ve been providing Charlotte and Raymond privacy for nearly twenty years. It was I who first heard Ray’s theories about the fortune in oil and gas that makes its home here along Copper Creek. It was I, long involved in fencing stolen artifacts provided by the Santiago brothers and their gang, who put Ray alongside Ricardo at the right moment, and it was I who drove the Escalade out of Mickey’s garage that day when the idiots started shooting a police detective but couldn’t keep up with an over-the-hill journalist. It was I who staged the rescue of Ray Means while Charlotte murdered those officers.

  “Of course it was I who held the strings, can you imagine any of these dolts running this kind of sophisticated enterprise? Of course not, they were too busy proving themselves to themselves in the moment to think two moves ahead.

  “This was the perfect set up. I have invested twenty years in being the right person in the right place to plunder this valley, only to see you louse it up in a matter of weeks.”

  I had one more question to ask, “But, how is this going to keep Lawton and Fish from tracking you down forever? We die, you disappear? Think that won’t raise an eyebrow or two?”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” the old man said softly. “I said Frank is waiting to give a ride, I didn’t say I was going. No, my old colleague Frank is in perfect position to take the blame for your deaths just before I rid the world of him, alas a second too late for you two.”

  As the innkeeper raised his pistol to shoot me, my damaged left ear recoiled at the sound of a large-caliber gun. Frank hadn’t waited in the car after all. The shot through the closed screen door hit Mike in the back shoulder, and spun him around. His finger reflexively pulled his trigger as he fell, and the round went into the porch ceiling. Frank screamed some kind of Spanish curse and shot him again just as Mike’s reflexes again pulled the trigger; his second shot took Frank right under the chin, throwing him back off the steps with a scream.

  I found myself hugging Jan as silence erupted. I gently pried her arms off mine, and went to Big Mike’s side. He had no pulse. I switched on the porch lights and went looking for Frank, walking like a disoriented drunk. I didn’t see him in the porch
light, so I staggered back, and took Big Mike’s weapon from his hand. I clicked the safety on, and then off again, and then went into the kitchen for a flashlight.

  As I came back out on the porch, I handed my phone to Jan. “Dial nine-eleven.”

  “Don’t go, please. Don’t go.”

  “Make the call, I’ll be right back.”

  I slowly and carefully started looking for my unlikely savior. The first thing I noticed in the harsh black and white of the flashlight was the blood trail going down the walk. I cautiously peered around the corner of the house where the driveway was. I peeked around and saw more blood, but nothing else. I stayed in the shadows with the light off, and edged my way down the flower bed toward the end of the driveway. Santiago had bled out at the street, right next to his Suburban.

  I checked him like a shot deer, careful to make sure he couldn’t give me one last surprise, but he had no pulse, and his eyes were wide open, as if he was staring at the answer to his lifelong question about how tough was tough enough.

  66

  I returned home on Sunday, and with Shirlee and Jack’s help, I retrieved my truck, put my house back in shape. I tried to resume the quiet rhythms of my life. I had started writing this book, taking my walks, and I had started thinking about a pond I knew where the brook trout routinely ran up to 14 inches.

  On Tuesday I received a call from Patrick Lynch, the attorney for Seth and Phillip Buchanan.

  “Mr. Stanton,” he started formally, “I’m in need of your mailing address.”

  I gave it to him.

  “I’ve been meeting with the boys this week, and they’re adamant they want to send you a token of their appreciation for your part in protecting their father’s wishes.”

  I thought about that for a second. “That’s fine. I’ll look forward to a card of thanks; I really wouldn’t think anything else would be appropriate.”

  “You may not understand, Mr. Stanton. I explained this to Miss Coldwell. These boys just acquired an inheritance estimated in the tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars that they would never have received but for the efforts of you and the newspaper.

  “They have decided that an appropriate gesture would include a check to each of you. So they have directed me, and so I shall send. Have a great day, Mr. Stanton, and on behalf of my clients and myself, thank you.”

  Before I could respond, he was off the line.

  While I sat there contemplating what kind of check they might be sending me, Jan called.

  “Did Lynch call you?” she asked

  “He did. Isn’t that something? What do you think of that?”

  “I’m not sure. It was certainly unexpected. I’m not even sure if it’s welcome.”

  “We can deal with that when it comes. If it makes us uncomfortable, we can always donate it away; put it to a good cause.”

  I wondered what she was looking like right then, and I found myself longing to reach out and touch her. “How’re you getting along?”

  “I’m working. I went to Traverse this morning, and every one of my clients wanted to talk about the story… I really don’t want to talk about that any more. I’d like to forget it, actually.”

  We went quiet before she started up again. “Lawton is up and around. Had lunch with me on Monday. I gave him that shoe box you had for him. He said he thought he could convince the D.A. to drop the theft charge against you for stealing his service revolver.”

  I deadpanned right back, “I’ll be real surprised if they lift any finger prints off that gun. I sent it back to him as clean as I found it. Same with the extra ammo and the holster. I don’t think there’s any case against me for having that weapon… you on the other hand…”

  We both chuckled, and I could feel the warmth through the phone. She needed to be joshed a bit. So did I.

  She was quiet for a minute then said, “I’m thinking of taking some time off, you know?”

  “I think that would be a great idea. You’ve built a pretty good operation there, and you can always be just a phone call away.”

  “That’s what I was thinking…”

  “Are you waiting for an invitation, Miss Coldwell?”

  “Actually, I was. Can I come?”

  “Just tell me when and where, and I’ll meet you.”

  “I’ve never been to Portland. They play jazz there?”

  “They do. Great jazz.”

  “Sushi?”

  “Marvelous sushi.”

  “Do you know anybody there? Would I?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Perfect. Can you meet me in Portland next Thursday at noon your time?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  67

  I made reservations at the old 5th Avenue Suites in downtown Portland, and we spent three days seeing the town, listening to jazz and eating at a few of the great restaurants.

  “I can eat sushi every day,” she told me when I picked her up at the airport, and we did.

  The middle of June can be glorious in Portland, full of sunshine and brightness. It didn’t rain once while we were in town.

  Then we took a scenic drive home, through the Columbia Gorge, stopped for a drink and lunch at the Columbia Gorge Hotel in Hood River, made a tour out of the Mary Hill museum and bought some wine at the Mary Hill vineyard there, too. We finally arrived home on Sunday night.

  I had put her in her own room when I brought her luggage into the house, and she didn’t say a word.

  We sat on the porch and watched the star show for a while, but before long we were both yawning big, creaking yawns. I kissed her goodnight and headed for bed. When I came back into my bedroom she was in the bed, waiting for me.

  We had nothing to say to each other, and we were pretty used up from our weekend in Portland. But it was clear to me she wasn’t planning to sleep alone while she was here.

  Our days that fourth week of June fell into a routine of sorts. An early morning walk started the days. She couldn’t keep up with me at first, but I slowed down. I started showing her some of the basic forms of t’ai chi ch’uan, and I gave her a book to read about the spiritual and physical benefits one could attain from further practice.

  She spent some time each day online with her newspaper. I spent some time each day writing on my book project.

  And we became acquainted outside the energy of fear and action.

  One afternoon I found her completely engrossed in a photo album. She had discovered a box of old photos and albums in the closet of the spare bedroom.

  She noticed me watching her, and smiled before going back to turning pages, “You were a fatty years ago, weren’t you? But you were really skinny when you first came home from the war…”

  On Friday, the 24th of June, I received my regular weekly update from Lawton. “Charlotte will survive to face trial,” he told me. “You and Jan will have to testify. The woman is going way forever.”

  “That’ll be a real test of how tough she is,” I responded.

  Shirlee called that afternoon, and after chatting a few minutes with Jan, asked to talk to me.

  “Jim, how about we show this gal off? You ready to take your happiness public?”

  I hadn’t thought for a minute that I had been hiding away with Jan. “Of course, I’m prepared, what are you thinking?”

  “A July Fourth party on Saturday, the third, a week from tomorrow.”

  I agreed immediately. She decided to hold it at my house. “Better view of the valley, and you have a dishwasher.”

  We agreed on an invitation list, and she said she would handle that. The whole plan came together in less than 10 minutes. Jan was standing there listening to my side of the conversation, and by the time I hung up she was grinning like an idiot while at the same time tears were streaming down her face.

  “What gives?” I asked, gently taking her into my arms.

  “Oh, I’m being silly, but I was starting to wonder if you’d ever feel ready to introduce me to your friends here.”r />
  I hadn’t even thought of it. “What a sensitive, caring dope you are, Stanton,” I thought to myself. Out loud I just said, “I can’t wait for people I care about out here to get a load of you.”

  68

  On Sunday evening, I was sitting on a chaise lounge on the porch, listening to my son on the phone. Jeremy lives in upstate New York. He manages a Radio Shack store in Watertown, but his real job is fishing the St. Lawrence River and eastern Lake Ontario.

  We talked about once a month, and this was his belated Father’s Day call. We shared emails more frequently. His sister, Sara, was in Europe. She was a stage manager and sometimes director for a theater group headquartered in Minneapolis. They had received a grant to take a tour of Western Europe. They had left in April and would be home in August. As usual, neither of us had heard much from her during her trip. She’d inundate us with stories and photos as the tour wound down, we knew.

  Jan came and curled down beside me; putting her head on my shoulder just as Jeremy asked if there was anything or anyone new in my life.

  I didn’t hesitate. I told him about meeting Jan during a trip to Michigan. I left out all the creepy stuff. I told him she owned a weekly newspaper, and what it was like, and what she was like.

  “Sounds like a nice lady, Dad. Anything serious working in the romance department?”

  “Pretty personal question. You any closer to making Sheila an honest woman and mother of my first grandchild?”

  “Touché.”

  I saw the shocked look on Jan’s face, “Actually, yes, I’d say something is definitely working in the romance department.” Jan’s face started turning pink, and she dug an elbow into my ribs, just a bit.

  “That’s cool!” Jeremy said. “Sara’s going to be jazzed when she hears that. When are we going to meet her?”

  “If you can be here Saturday, we’re having a big July Fourth blow out, and she’s here now.”