The Mulligans of Mt. Jefferson

by Don Reid

Chapter Fifty-Four

  Buddy was in the hospital as a patient only once. He’d had an appendectomy a few years before and had to spend two nights and three days in one of the sterile rooms for two on the third floor. Nothing about the stay was pleasant—certainly not his roommate, a local barber who was having a gallbladder operation and who tended to snore all night. Nothing and no one could stop the snoring until the morning sun crashed through the window and woke the man. But this was the least of his annoying habits. The one that bothered Buddy most was the way he read the morning paper and his Luke Short western novels. He read them aloud. And loudly. People in the rooms on both sides of them could hear him. Buddy had tried to play the radio to drown him out, but it only served as competition, and the radio finally lost. But even among all these bad memories, what he remembered most clearly from his ordeal was the hospital food. And this is what led him to say to Amanda over dinner in the hospital cafeteria, “How can the food be so good in here and so bad upstairs?”

  “I’m sure it all comes from the same kitchen.”

  “You don’t really believe that do you?”

  “Certainly. It’s just that upstairs, you’re not feeling well, and it makes dinnertime seem more like medicine than a meal.”

  “That’s a good theory and one I’ll consider. I don’t intend to agree with it, but I’ll consider it.”

  They both laughed.

  “Are you going to try to see Harlan while we’re here?” Amanda asked.

  “Sure. You want to go up with me?”

  “I’d love to. Maybe Darcy will be there. I haven’t talked to her today.”

  “Let me warn you before we go—Darcy may not be too happy with me.”

  “What happened? What did you do to her?” Amanda asked almost scoldingly.

  “I accused her of not telling me the whole truth.”

  “You didn’t. Why would you do that?”

  “Because some things are not adding up. I don’t think whoever it was came to rob them. I think he came to threaten Harlan.”

  “And what makes you think she knows more than she’s telling?” Amanda asked with more understanding.

  “Because she was there and saw it all.”

  “And you said this to her face?”

  “I’m a cop, honey. That’s what I do. It doesn’t accomplish anything if I don’t say it to their face. And since I’ve told you this much, you might as well know she pretty much threw me out of the house.”

  “What?” Amanda couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  “She picked up my coffee cup, told me I was through there, and turned and went upstairs. Left me sitting in the kitchen with the dog.”

  “So if she’s up there in Harlan’s room, you don’t want to see her?”

  “That’s not it. I don’t care either way,” Buddy assured here. “I just wanted you to know what was going on in case there was any kind of scene. Believe me, I’m prepared to stand behind what I had to say to her. And it might not be over. I may have to talk to her that way again.”

  “Oh, Buddy, I hope not. She’s so …”

  Their son-in-law interrupted them as he walked through the door to the cafeteria and over to their table.

  “Hey, folks.”

  “Hi, Louis Wayne,” Amanda said. “Do you have news?”

  “Yes and no. They sent me down here to find you and tell you we’re going home.”

  “Home? What’s happened?”

  “Nothing. That’s just it. The doctor said it’s a false alarm. The labor pains are practically gone. He says it happens all the time. Could be days yet. So they’re letting her go home.”

  “We’re about through. We’ll come with you,” Amanda said.

  “That’s okay. You go ahead and finish eating. I’ll take care of Shirley Ann. Then you can go up and see your friend. How is Mr. Stone?”

  “He’ll live,” Buddy answered.

  They said their good-byes, and Amanda and Buddy sat at the table and watched him go. He had just cleared the doorway when Korina Drakos walked through another entrance.

  “Did you get the message about your daughter?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Amanda said. “They’re sending her home.”

  Buddy noticed again her hypnotic eyes and beautiful skin. She stood with her hands on her hips while talking to them and flashed a smile and a hello at everyone who passed. He didn’t hear all she was saying, but when he tuned back into the conversation between her and Amanda, he noticed Korina was looking directly at him.

  “Excuse me, what did you say?” Buddy asked.

  “I said ‘You have the evening free, and you can take your wife to a movie tonight.’” Korina said with a smile.

  “Yeah, that sounds like fun.” Buddy chuckled. “But we’ve got visiting to do while we’re here.”

  “That’s right. Your friend is here, isn’t he? I hope he pulls through that all right.”

  “Thank you. And thank you for your help with our daughter.”

  As she walked away and they were getting up from the table, Amanda spoke. “She is so pretty, isn’t she?”

  “Yes, she is. But that’s the second thing I see when I look at her. The first thing is—she’s a Drakos.”

  “And that’s always bad?”

  “Well, it ain’t always good.”

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Their first year in Columbus, a daughter, Elizabeth, was born to Cal and Ellie. Two years later, they had a son, Matthew, and Cal was sure this was only the beginning of the large, houseful of children he had wanted since he was a child. With no brothers and sisters, he had spent a lot of lonely nights and weekends growing up. No one had noticed because of his inseparable friendship with Harlan and Buddy. But having a brother or sister to lean on and share with was a dream he’d never told anyone. Certainly not his parents. They had showered him with everything they could afford as far as money, time, and love were concerned, but he always wondered what it would be like to have a sibling who knew the family secrets and shared the closeness and warmth of a small home. He hoped he could give that secure and belonging feeling to his children, no matter how many there might be.

  After four years, the denomination encouraged a move, and Cal and his family ended up in a farming community in rural Pennsylvania. The church was just outside Lancaster, and the powers that be in the Methodist denomination allowed them to stay there for five years. The kids loved the place and made lots of friends. Ellie even warmed up to a few women’s circles and put more of herself into the effort than she had in Columbus. But then in 1954 it was time to move again.

  “Cal, this is ridiculous.”

  “I know how you feel, Ellie, but …”

  “But do you care how I feel? Do you care how the children feel?”

  “Of course I do. But this is the life in the Methodist church. We move.”

  “Why? Why do you have to move every four or five years? Don’t they know we have a family?”

  “Yes, they do. And you knew this was the custom of the denomination before we ever had a family. Before you ever married me.”

  “Maybe I just didn’t give it proper thought. But I’m giving it proper thought now.”

  “What are you talking about? Giving what proper thought? The church or marrying me?”

  There was a long pause; she seemed not so much to gather the words but to try to make sure he understood the weight of them. “All of it. The kids come first, and if you would take time to talk to them and consider them, you’d know how they feel about it.”

  “I have talked to them. And I’ve tried to explain the situation. Not like you do when you just support whatever view they have at the time. I’ve tried to show them the responsibility I have and that I can’t just up and change something becaus
e it doesn’t suit our family.”

  “Cal, they are six and eight years old. Matthew has just started to school. Elizabeth has close girlfriends, and you can’t just uproot them and take them all over the country like this for the rest of their lives.”

  “If I were military, we’d have to do this. If I were in a national company with offices all over the world, we’d have to do this. There are lots of families in our situation. We are not unique.”

  “Oh, yes, we are. We’re nomads. Gypsies. Wandering all over the place. Never owning a home. Living in one rented parsonage after another. Wouldn’t I just love to have a house of my own to fix up the way I want it for a change.”

  “I have nothing more to say unless you want me to quit and get a job teaching. Or driving a bus or whatever you might have in mind for me. I never kept this from you. You knew from day one who I was and what I was. You knew the policy, and you came into it with eyes wide open.”

  “Yes, I did. But I didn’t know then I would feel this way. I didn’t know then we’d have kids who wouldn’t feel the same way you do about just picking up and moving on a moment’s notice. No, Cal, I need something more. Something more than this. I want a home of my own.”

  “Maybe the next place we’ll be able to stay longer.”

  “Why couldn’t you have been a Baptist or a Presbyterian? Some of those men stay for twenty-five and thirty years at the same church. Their kids grow up and have the same friends all the way through school.”

  “I can’t change the things I can’t change, Ellie. It’s that simple.”

  They didn’t talk about it again for three weeks. The next time the subject came up, Cal used the only weapon he had. He was tied to the customs and laws of the church, and yet he wanted to make and keep his family happy. And that, peeled down to the core, meant he had to find a way to make Ellie happy.

  As he sat on his side of the bed, taking off his shoes after Elizabeth and Matthew had gone to sleep, he watched his wife do her nightly routine at her vanity table.

  “I had a meeting today and made some phone calls concerning our next move.” He waited for a reaction from her, but when none came, he continued. “There are a number of good places open. Upstate New York near Buffalo. A couple back in Ohio, but I knew you wouldn’t want that. There’re two or three in the Carolinas. But then there was something else that looked really good.”

  This time he waited her out. He was silent until she finally turned around and looked at him and asked, “Where?”

  “Ashland, Kentucky. Just two hundred miles from your mom and dad. They could be with their grandchildren weekends, Christmas, all summer if they wanted. What do you think?”

  “Sounds fine,” she said with no emotion or excitement in her voice—but no anger either. “When would we go?”

  “January.”

  “I’ll tell the kids tomorrow.”

  “Let’s tell them together.”

  “That’s okay,” she said, combing her hair and staring into the mirror. “I’ll tell them.”

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Amanda was in the kitchen fixing breakfast. Buddy walked through from the bedroom and out the back door to get the newspaper from the driveway. Each morning when he found the daily paper folded into a perfect square with each edge tucked into its own invented flap, he smiled. This was the same fold he had given newspapers on his paper route so many years ago. You could make them sail, and the heavier the news, the more accurate the toss. Their paperboy was pretty good. The paper was in the same place every morning except for only a couple of times when it had hit the car and bounced into the shrubs.

  Buddy didn’t open the paper until he sat down at the table with his coffee in front of him. He skimmed the headlines and the pictures on the front page; Queen Elizabeth was on a forty-five–day tour of Canada; a federal court had ruled that Orval Faubus, governor of Arkansas, had illegally closed the public schools there; Branch Rickey was announcing plans for a third major baseball league and was going to call it the Continental League—see Sports Page for more. But it was the small story in the lower right-hand corner that caught his eye. The bold headline simply said:

  Local Realtor Questioned In Shooting

  Local realtor Nicoli Drakos, of Drakos Brothers Realty, was questioned yesterday in the shooting of Mt. Jefferson merchant Harlan Stone. Stone, owner and operator of Stones by Stone Jewelry, was shot in his home at 2244 Eagleton Lane Wednesday morning in the early a.m. by an intruder. He is recovering in the hospital, and his condition is listed as stable.

  Drakos, 29, a lifelong resident of the area, was questioned and released by the MJPD. He was not available for comment. The Daily Press considers this an ongoing investigation and will report accordingly as the story develops.

  Buddy never even looked at page two. He got up and went straight to the phone and dialed the station. The desk sergeant answered on the first ring.

  “Mt. Jefferson Police.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Tolley. How can I help you?”

  “Jim, this is Briggs. I need you to make a call. Call Gary Akerman, and tell him I want to see him.”

  “The newspaper guy?”

  “Yeah. Try him at his office or at home. But find him and tell him I want to see him at the station in thirty minutes flat. Got it?”

  “Yes sir. Consider it done.”

  But it wasn’t done. While Buddy had finished dressing and was considering skipping breakfast altogether, the phone rang. It was Sergeant Tolley again.

  “Lieutenant, I found him. But there’s a problem.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “He won’t come.”

  “What do you mean he won’t come? He told you that?”

  “Yes sir. He said he’s afraid to come. He said he knows why you want him, and he isn’t coming in here. He said if you wanted to see him he’d meet you somewhere in public, but he will not come in here and see you in private. I think he’s real scared.”

  “He’s got reason to be.”

  “You want me to go get him?”

  “No. Tell him I’ll meet him in public. I’ll meet him at Mulligans in the back booth at eight thirty sharp. And Tolley, stress to him how I feel about punctuality.”

  “I get your meaning, Lieutenant. I’ll take care of it. He’ll be there, or he won’t be anywhere.”

  “Thank you, Jim.”

  Buddy stood for a moment and looked through his window at the beautiful flowers in his backyard. He hated to get mad this early in the morning. And such a pretty morning too.

  At 8:29 a.m. Gary Akerman walked cautiously through the front entrance of Mulligans. He was met by Vic Princeton, who called him by name, greeted him, and directed him to the back booth on the right. There he found Buddy Briggs. There was no coffee on the table, no donuts, nothing that would suggest social amenities of any kind. This was strictly a business meeting.

  “Sit down,” Buddy said with no expression.

  “Buddy, I know you’re mad, but let me explain.”

  “There’s nothing to explain. I told you not to do something, and you did it.”

  “I can explain. Just give me a chance. I went back to the office, and I admit—I wanted to write the story. I wanted to real bad ’cause I don’t like Drakos. I went back to the office, and I mentioned it to Riley, the editor, and he thought it would be a good story. I told him what you had said, and he gave me this long lecture about what makes a good newspaperman and how you can’t ever let anybody stifle the story. That’s what he kept saying. ‘You can’t stifle the story.’ By this time I really didn’t want to do it, but I had already mentioned it to him and he wouldn’t let it rest. I mean, come on, Buddy, he’s my boss. I couldn’t just not do it.”

  “You could have just kept your mouth shut to start with
.”

  “I wish I had. But it was too late then. I had to go with it or risk getting on the outs with my boss.”

  “You tell a real sad tale, Gary. And I’m not buying any of it. And even if I did, it wouldn’t matter because I don’t care about Riley or anybody else you’ve got to deal with. And right now you shouldn’t care about anybody else but me. Because you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to ban you from the police station. No more sitting around waiting on police calls and getting in on the ground floor on fights and wrecks or whatever scandal gets you all hot and worked up. No more favoritism. You will not be able to step foot inside that place until you get written permission from me.”

  “Don’t do this, Buddy. Don’t do this to me.”

  “You have disrespected my wishes and disrespected me. And you have put a citizen in harm’s way and his reputation in jeopardy.”

  “Aw, come on, Buddy. We’re talking about Nicoli Drakos here. What do you mean his reputation is in jeopardy? You couldn’t damage his reputation if you poured acid on it.”

  “You miss the point, Gary. The point is I asked you to do something as a friend and an associate, and you thumbed your nose at me.”

  “My boss made me do it.”

  “Your mouth made you do it. If you had kept it shut you wouldn’t be in this situation now.”

  Vic stepped up to the table and quietly said, “Buddy, there’s an officer here to see you. Tolley. Says it’s urgent.”

  Jim Tolley rushed toward the booth and, with a red face from running, blurted out, “Buddy, we got a problem. A call just came through. Somebody else just got shot.”

  “What? What happened?”

  “Nicoli Drakos.”

  “Who did he shoot?” Buddy asked as he slid out of the booth.

  “No. He’s the one that got shot. In his office.”

  “When?”

  “Just now. Just minutes ago.”

  Buddy started for the door and then stepped back and looked at Gary Akerman still sitting in the booth, his head in his hands.

  “Where were you just before you walked in here?” Buddy asked in official tones.