Jasper Lilla and The Wolves of Banner Elk

by C. S. Thompson

  “Do you want it?” she asked.

  “Want what?”

  “Do you want the part-time job?”

  I did want a part-time job, but the thought of telling my mother that I was working at Lion Pharmaceuticals made me shudder. “I don’t think so,” I reluctantly told her.

  “Are you sure? It would just be after school. I’d really, really, really appreciate it. They won’t think my dad’s such a bad guy if you worked there.” When she said “really” the third time, she leaned across the table and lowered her voice into a breathy whisper.

  I heard everything she said, and in my head I knew she sounded like a little girl trying to get her way. I even recognized that her breath was really bad. But at the moment all I could focus on was the curl of her lower lip and the smell of strawberry. Then I heard myself say, “Okay.”

  Fourteen

  Dealing with Mom

  After dinner I headed off to my room to do homework. Ten minutes later my mom knocked on my door. “Got a minute?” she said, peeking in.

  “Sure.”

  She sat on my bed. “How was your time with Riley?”

  “Okay.” I’m not sure what parents think will happen when they ask questions like that.

  Normally she’d have pushed that further, but she had other things on her mind. “I don’t know how much of my conversation with Alice Dietrich last week you heard, but I was concerned that some of it might have bothered you.”

  I stared at her like I didn’t know what she was talking about. She knew I knew, and I knew she knew I knew, but such is the games sons play with their mothers.

  “I think it’s great that you and Riley are friends,” she began. “Riley is such a sweet girl.”

  “But you don’t like her father,” I blurted.

  “Jasper,” she said in a breathy voice that usually made me feel little.

  “You think he killed Dr. Dietrich.”

  “I do not think he killed Dr. Dietrich.”

  “I heard you, Mom.”

  “I hold William Lyons responsible for Franz’s death. That’s true. But that is not the same thing.”

  I didn’t get that.

  She tried again. “Look, Jasper, Franz was poisoned. Whoever put the poison in him murdered him.”

  “The police think he committed suicide.”

  “They do.” She looked away and raised her eyebrows. “At least that’s what they are saying.”

  “But you think they’re wrong.”

  “Alice is convinced they are wrong, and she has a good argument. I knew Franz very well, and I have a hard time believing he’d kill himself.” She locked eyes with me before going on. “But Riley’s dad is responsible for the environment that is responsible for Franz’s death.” Waving a finger she added, “Whether it was a murder or a suicide.”

  “What are you going to do?” It was a bold question. I think the necklace had something to do with it.

  Her head recoiled. “What am I going to do? What makes you think I’m going to do something?”

  “I heard you tell Mrs. Dietrich you’d see justice done.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You were listening that night?”

  I nodded yes. “I’m sorry.”

  She took a deep breath. “It’s true. I said that. But what that meant was that nature has a way of keeping itself in balance. People like Riley’s dad can only defy nature so long before it catches up with them.”

  Fifteen

  Carol Returns

  After school I drove out to Lion Pharmaceuticals and filled out an application for the job Riley told me about. Mrs. Jennings, the lady in the HR department, said it was an errand-boy job and I’d need to have a valid driver’s license. I wanted to say, “It’s not only valid, it’s brand-new.” She took my application and told me some guy named Benjamin would call me back if they decided to interview me. I knew I was nervous when I left because I said, “Thank youk.” I must have been worrying about the spelling on my application.

  * * *

  I got home just in time for dinner, which was supposed to be shepherd’s pie. It was my favorite thing that Aunt Maggie would make when Mom was gone, and Mom wasn’t due back until tomorrow. Dinner was not shepherd’s pie, however, and Mom was in the kitchen cooking African stew—a stew with sweet potatoes, spinach, and peanut butter. It was my sister Carol’s favorite dish.

  “Where have you been?” asked Mom.

  The question threw me. I knew Mom would not be happy with me working for Riley’s dad. She blamed him for the death of Dr. Dietrich. I thought I had a day to figure out how to tell her, but I was wrong. “I . . . ah . . .” was about as intelligent as I could be.

  Lucky for me that was all the answer I needed right then. As I stalled for time, the back door burst open, and in walked Carol. Carol’s arrival explained my mother’s early return.

  * * *

  My sister, Carol, is eight years older than I am. She and Linus were just under two years apart. She never called him “Linus,” maybe because it was her fault he got saddled with that name, but more likely because to her and Mom, he was always “Tommy.” In her own way Carol is famous, too. She’s not famous in the sense that people know her by name the way they know Mom’s name, or think of her as a hero the way they do Linus. Her fame is her pottery, which she sells under the name Tucker Downs. The name is a combination of James Tucker, the UCLA art professor who got her interested in pottery while she was a student, and her favorite childhood book, Watership Down.

  Mom says Carol doesn’t want the fame because she’s a farm girl at heart. Mom may be right, but I have a different perspective. Between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, before she went to college, Carol took care of me a lot. I was a tagalong, and I got to see how she handled all the attention she attracted from guys of all ages. Everywhere we went she was flirted with, ogled at, and talked about in ways that would never have happened if Linus was with us. In Linus’s absence, Carol would mostly ignore what came her way, but I could feel her bristle. I could hear her under-the-breath revulsion, and when we were once again alone she’d almost always say, “If you ever treat women that way I’ll shave your head and tattoo Watership Down characters all over your head.”

  If you haven’t realized it yet, Carol is beautiful. I don’t mean swimsuit-model beautiful. I don’t mean voluptuous, pin-up-calendar beautiful either. I mean she’s girl-next-door beautiful. While she was at UCLA a movie producer approached her in a coffee shop and offered her the part of MaryAnn in a remake of Gilligan’s Island. She laughed at him when he asked for some nude photos.

  I don’t know the name of that producer, but I do know he was for real because a man in a wheelchair was sitting near Carol and heard the whole thing. “You don’t know who that was, do you?” he asked her. She didn’t, and I didn’t recognize his name either when I heard the story, but the guy in the wheelchair said he was the “real deal.” The guy in the wheelchair turned out to be a biochemist, Wallace Beery, PhD. He ran a research lab at UCLA. They were married four months later, which meant she got her senior year’s tuition covered because her spouse worked there. It also meant that she wouldn’t be coming home any time soon.

  I remember the phone call when Carol told mom who she was going to marry. “You’re marrying Long John Silver,” was what mom said. She was smiling. Later she explained that Wallace Beery was the name of an actor who played Long John Silver in an old movie, “Treasure Island.”

  Mom offered to add Carol’s last year’s tuition to the money Mom had saved for her wedding and use it all for a destination wedding. “Anywhere you want to go,” Mom told her. “Use the money to make the house wheelchair-friendly,” Carol told Mom. So that’s what Mom did. According to Mom—and who knows if it is the complete truth?—the downstairs only required the remodeling of one bathroom, widening several doors, and adding two ramps. Mom also remodeled a barn for them. It included a pottery studio for Carol with a big bay window overlooking our back pasture and the mountains
behind. It was like Mom knew Carol would be coming home to stay one day. And here it was, happening before my very eyes.

  * * *

  “Baby girl,” my mother announced, and she dropped the spoon down in the soup pot and spread her arms wide.

  They hugged while I waited my turn.

  Mom pushed away but held onto Carol’s arms and asked, “Where’s Wally?”

  “He’ll be in in a minute. It just takes him longer to get out of the van,” explained Carol in a voice that also said, “I shouldn’t have to explain why it takes longer for a guy in a wheelchair to come in.”

  That was Carol. Being in a wheelchair was just another problem to solve, but it was his problem to solve. That was one of the stories Wally told at their wedding. He also told us that he knew he could be married to her because she was willing to let it be his problem.

  “Kitty,” yelled Aunt Maggie, “get down from there.” Wally was stuck in the doorway to the kitchen with Kitty’s front paws in his lap. He couldn’t roll in any farther. Kitty is our seventy-five-pound Great Pyrenees puppy.

  “Come in,” continued Aunt Maggie as she took hold of Kitty’s collar and forced him to obey. “He thinks you’ll give him more cake,” she added with a roll of her eyes.

  Wally had given cake to Kitty at their wedding. It was an act Kitty still appreciated and Aunt Maggie still begrudged him.

  * * *

  Once everyone was in and hugged appropriately, Aunt Maggie shoved Kitty back outside and the rest of us to the kitchen table. Mom raved about how well they both looked. Carol raved about the African stew. Wally raved about how his new van was adapted to allow him to drive. Aunt Maggie and I were quiet, which was the normal operating procedure for her.

  “What’s up with you, squirt?” Carol finally asked me when we were nearly done with dinner.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, but I knew what she meant.

  “I mean, what’s up? You’re so quiet. Wally thinks you’re not glad to see us.”

  I immediately looked at Wally, who nodded his head no, he wasn’t thinking that at all.

  Aunt Maggie answered for me. “He’s wondering why you were able to drive all the way here from California and never find the time to let him know you were coming.”

  “I wasn’t thinking that,” I lied.

  “I didn’t know you didn’t know,” Wally told me.

  “I knew you didn’t know,” admitted Carol. “I just wanted to surprise you. And let me tell you, squirt, you’re sure taking the fun out of that.”

  “What did I do?”

  “It’s my fault,” said Mom. “I wasn’t entirely sure they were going to come all the way until yesterday.”

  That didn’t make sense to me. It must take a week or more to drive a wheelchair van from California to North Carolina. Why would they get within a few days and turn around?

  Carol must have figured out what I was thinking because she explained, “She was hoping we wouldn’t come.”

  “What?” blurted both Mom and I at the same time.

  “You are always welcome here,” stated Mom with a tone that made me expect her to pound the table with her fist. “And you are welcome to stay as long as you want. Who do you think I built that addition out back for?”

  “I know,” sang Carol. “It’s why we came that you object to.”

  “Why did you come?” I asked.

  Carol leaned across the table toward me. “Wally has a job interview tomorrow.” She looked at Wally and smiled proudly, “He could be the head of research at a pharmaceutical company right here in Boone.”

  “That place is no good,” said my mother. “There’s some kind of evil over there.”

  “Where?” I asked, but I already knew.

  Sixteen

  Taking Wally to Lion

  Wally’s interview at Lion Pharmaceuticals was at four o’clock the next day. I volunteered to drive him. It would have been different had Mom known why I volunteered, but I wasn’t going to tell her I was going to use it to make my job seem more accidental.

  Wally was in his van and ready to go when I got home at a little past 3:30.

  “We’ve got plenty of time,” I told him, but he wanted to leave early because getting out of the van took time, and he had no idea how handicap accessible Lion would be. I had just been there the day before, but I hadn’t paid attention to that.

  “Do you know what your mother has against Lion Pharmaceuticals?” Wally asked as we drove.

  “Do you know about Dr. Dietrich?” I asked him back.

  “I do,” he said. “He was the director of research who committed suicide. I mean his death was deemed a suicide, but your mother doesn’t believe it. Is that what you mean?”

  “Yeah. That was Dr. Dietrich. Mrs. Dietrich is one of Mom’s best friends, and Mom told her she was going to see justice done.”

  “She wasn’t being serious,” said Wally.

  “She sounded serious to me.”

  “She’s not a vigilante.”

  “A what?”

  “A vigilante. Someone who takes the law into his or her own hands.”

  I wasn’t sure he was right about Mom not taking the law into her own hands. She was a stickler about the rules, but only when the rules were right. She’d drive over the speed limit, but she’d also admit it if she got caught. And she wouldn’t let a cop give her a pass because he read her books to his kid. “I took the risk and I got caught, “ she’d tell the officer. That was my mom; if she thought the law was right, she’d follow it to a T, but if she thought the law was bogus she’d have no problem at all taking matters into her own hands.

  “Vernalisa’s no vigilante,” continued Wally.

  There was no point in arguing with him. He was married to Carol, and Carol was going to be the one to tell him what to think of Mom, not me.

  We were quiet for a while, but when we drove through the gate he said, “Thanks for being my chauffeur today.”

  “Can I tell you something?” I asked as I pulled into a parking place.

  “That sounds serious.”

  I nodded. “This is just between you and me.”

  “You mean you want me to promise I won’t tell Carol or your mother.”

  I nodded yes.

  “You know I can’t promise that, Jasper. If you’re going to trust me, you have to trust me. Are you in some kind of trouble?”

  I realized he must have thought it was some sort of big deal. “It’s nothing like that. It’s just that I came here about a job, too, but there’s no reason Mom should know that yet.”

  Wally laughed. “I don’t see how you can keep that a secret very long, but I’ll not be the one to rat you out.”

  Seventeen

  James Benjamin

  Lion Pharmaceuticals turned out to be very handicap accessible. Wally got up to the building without any help from me. A big man with shoulder-length brown hair and a dark blue suit opened the door for us as we got close. He was tall and lean, and his starched white shirt was buttoned all the way up, yet he wore no tie. With all that, he looked completely out of place—or maybe it was more that he looked out of time—but his face is really what drew my attention. He was expressionless. He watched Wally approach without blinking or turning aside.

  “We have an appointment with a Mr. Benjamin,” Wally told him.

  “You are expected,” said the man at the door. He sounded like he was doing a bad imitation of a Russian accent.

  “Thank you,” said Wally as he motored inside.

  As I followed him in, the man looked at me for the first time. He was wearing Axe. I told myself not to stare, but our eyes locked as I passed.

  “You were here yesterday,” he said.

  I was all the way past him when he said it. “I didn’t see you . . . ,” I began to say as the door closed in my face.

  * * *

  At the other end of the entry stood a man in a pink shirt and a pink tie. He looked like a game-show host. “Don’t mind him,” the
man in pink told us. “He’s one of the security guys. He’s supposed to be scary.”

  It worked, I thought.

  “You must be Doctor Beery,” the pink shirt said as he approached Wally with his hand out. “I’m James Benjamin, the human resources director.”

  “What gave me away?” asked Wally.

  The game-show-host smile disappeared as Mr. Benjamin tried to think of how to respond.

  “I’m sorry,” apologized Wally. “Of course you were looking for a guy in a wheelchair. It’s just my sense of humor. “ He stuck out his hand. “Yes, I’m Wally Beery.”

  They shook hands.

  “My wife tells me that biochemists aren’t supposed to have a sense of humor, but when I’m with other wheelchair guys I usually have them rolling in the aisles.”

  “I see,” said Mr. Benjamin. “That’s nice.”

  I don’t think Mr. Benjamin knew it was a joke.

  “And who are you?” Mr. Benjamin asked me. His game-show demeanor had returned.

  “Jasper Lilla,” I answered, shaking hands with him. He squeezed my hand so hard I wanted to shake it when he let go. Instead, I stuck it in my pocket.

  “Why don’t you follow me?” he told Wally. “You’ll be meeting with Mr. Lyons. And Jasper,” he said without looking at me, “you can wait right there.” He pointed at a bench facing the front door.

  I sat on the bench watching them move down the hall to my left. I sat there until they disappeared around a corner, and then I made my way back to Mrs. Jennings’s office.

  “Hello, Mr. Lilla,” she said as I entered. It was the first time anyone had ever called me “Mr. Lilla” without being mad or disappointed. It felt weird.

  “Hi,” I said, stepping up to her desk. I retrieved from my back pocket the application she had given me and unfolded it.

  She looked at it and handed it back to me. “You have to sign it there,” she pointed at the bottom of the back page.

  I signed it with the pen she handed me and gave them both back to her.

  “Did you get lost?” asked a harsh voice from behind me.

  I turned around to see that Mr. Benjamin had come in.