‘Was missing,’ Kim said.
‘What?’
‘That red-bound volume you brought up the other day?’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘Eh voila!’ she said. ‘It covers the missing period. And there’s something else Cap found and brought up to me. Finish up your coffee and I’ll show you.’
On Kim’s desk in her courthouse office sat a cardboard container about the size of a large shoebox. She pushed it across the desk toward me. ‘Cap found this box yesterday afternoon buried under a pile of continuous-feed computer paper. Look inside.’
The box contained about a hundred business envelopes with the return address of the Tilghman County Office of Property Tax Assessment printed in the upper left-hand corner. Each envelope contained a typewritten letter folded in thirds so that the address showed through the glassine window.
‘Open one up,’ Kim said.
I slipped the first envelope out of the box and lifted the flap. The letter was dated July, 1950 and was addressed to a Tilghman County resident who rejoiced in the name Ezekiel Hezekiah Agnew. ‘It’s a foreclosure notice.’
‘Exactly. What else do you notice?’
I scanned the rest of the letter, turned it over then took another look at the envelope. The tax assessors had stamped it with a real stamp, a dingy brown and white one honoring the Boy Scouts of America. ‘Three cents,’ I said a bit nostalgically. And then I noticed that there was no postmark. ‘They were never mailed!’
Kim grinned. ‘Thank you, Sherlock.’
My fingers flew quickly through the remaining envelopes, through the Andersons, Duncans, Fraziers and Gordons until I found what I knew would be there: an envelope addressed to Mary C. Hazlett at a house number and street that I knew as well, uh, as well as my own. ‘She never got it.’
‘No. None of them did,’ Kim said.
‘Rusty mentioned that Clifton Ames had a summer job at the courthouse. Do you suppose …?’
‘If so, it’ll be in the employment records. They’re somewhere down in the basement, too.’
I was about to suggest we go search for the employment records when the telephone on Kim’s desk rang. She picked up and listened. ‘But we’re not done,’ she said. Then, ‘I understand, but I don’t like it.’ She hung up without saying goodbye. Not a good sign.
‘That was Ginny over at the county council office,’ Kim told me. ‘The mold report has come in. I’m afraid it’s stachybotrys chartarum. We’ve been ordered to stand down.’
‘But …’
‘They tell me it’s the “dangerous kind.”’
‘All mold is dangerous in its way, but there are ways to abate …’ I began, but Kim cut me off.
‘Out of my hands, I’m afraid. Come on. I may need a bodyguard when we tell Fran. She’ll go ballistic.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
‘An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.’
Simon Cameron, 1799–1889
I love late summer afternoons, that time of day when the sun casts long shadows, bringing Mother Nature into sharp focus. In a large saucepan, I was bringing turbinado sugar, light corn syrup, dark rum and butter to a boil over medium heat in order to make my mother’s fabulous pecan pie. Kim had challenged me to a duel. She planned to enter her mother’s killer peach pie in the bake-off the following day at the Tilghman County Fair. How could I allow her mother to out-bake my mother?
The telephone rang. Still stirring constantly to prevent burning, I reached for the phone. ‘Hello.’
‘Hannah, it’s Cap. I was passing by the courthouse on my way home when I saw two trucks pull into the parking lot. They had BioClean written all over the sides, so I hung around for a bit to see what they’re up to. Sam let one of them in through the back door. The guy was in there for a couple of minutes, and when he came out, the rest of them started climbing into white moon suits. I asked Sam what they were up to. Apparently they’ve been ordered to clean out the storeroom.’
I dragged the saucepan off the burner. ‘Who gave them permission to do that?’
‘Kimberly, I guess, but I can’t get her on the phone to confirm.’
‘Have you called Fran?’
‘I tried her home phone, but she didn’t pick up.’ He paused, and I heard a sharp intake of breath. ‘Damn. They’re carrying out boxes now.’
‘Where are they taking them?’ I asked, feeling panicky.
‘Hold on. I’ll call you right back.’
It seemed like hours, but it was probably only a few minutes before Cap rang again. ‘Just chatted with the supervisor. He says that because of the mold, the records are going to be incinerated at the county animal shelter.’
I let that information sink in. Knowing how hard we had worked on inventorying the county’s old records, I couldn’t believe that Kimberly had authorized their destruction, especially when our work was only half done. ‘I’ll get there as soon as I can. In the meantime, stick around and see what you can do to delay them until I can talk to Fran.’
When I reached Fran a few minutes later, it was on her cell phone. I could hear merry-go-round music in the background so I presumed, rightly, that she was at opening night of the county fair. ‘Fran,’ I said without preamble. ‘There’s a hazmat team at the courthouse, taking our records away.’
‘That’s not funny, Hannah.’
‘I’m not joking. Cap just called. They’re parked behind the courthouse so they’d be less obvious, but they’re from BioClean. It’s the same outfit that cleaned up the meth lab in Dorchester County last month. Cap says they’ve been ordered to take everything to the county animal shelter and burn it.’
‘Hazmat?’ Fran said. ‘Shit. First they take away our keys, now they let just anyone waltz in and take away county records before we’ve even had time to find out what’s in them?’ She paused to draw breath. ‘Who hired BioClean anyway?’
‘Kimberly, I suppose.’
‘I don’t believe that for a minute, do you?’ She paused. ‘I’ll call Kim. In the meantime, you call Grace.’
‘Grace? Why Grace?’
‘She volunteers at the shelter. Perhaps she can hold them off at that end.’
I reached Grace where one usually reached Grace. On her cell phone, sitting by Rusty’s bed. When I explained the situation, she said, ‘But we’re a no-kill shelter. The incinerator hasn’t been used for over six months.’
‘Apparently they’re going to fire it up. Is there any way it can be disabled?’
Grace paused to think. ‘There’s a big propane tank out back. Maybe if I shut off the fuel …?’ Her voice trailed off. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
When I arrived at the courthouse, I nearly ran my car into Kim’s as she was pulling into the parking lot from the opposite direction. She parked diagonally across the exit, jumped out of her car leaving her driver’s side door open and sprinted across the parking lot shouting, ‘Stop! What are you doing?’
It answered the question of whether or not she had authorized BioClean’s clandestine weekend visit.
Kim cornered one of the moon men as he emerged from the courthouse carrying a box I recognized as containing traffic tickets from 1972–1974. I didn’t care much about forty-year-old citations for failure to stop at a red light, but the next worker who emerged to face Kimberly’s wrath was carrying a box I’d sorted and labeled myself. Planning and Zoning, Hearings, 1961–1981 stood out in bold black letters on the outside. I planted myself firmly in the workman’s path.
He tried to step around me, but each time I countered his move in a cartoonish parking lot pas de deux.
‘Who’s in charge here?’ Kimberly asked, her voice low and menacing.
The worker jerked his helmeted head toward another white-clad alien carrying a second box of records labeled Time Cards, 1950–1960. ‘Owen.’
‘Don’t move,’ Kimberly ordered, and marched over to confront Owen. ‘I’m the court clerk. Who authorized you to do this?’
Owen peered at her from behind his plastic visor. ‘We have the hazmat contract for the county.’
‘How does that answer my question? Who authorized this removal?’
‘Who did you say you were?’
‘I’m the county clerk, Kimberly Marquis. I work here. And I certainly didn’t order anyone to take our records away.’
‘Paperwork is in the truck,’ Owen said. He dropped the box of employment records he was carrying to the tarmac and waddled off in his hazmat suit and booties to get it. A few seconds later he returned holding a clipboard awkwardly between gloved paws and thrust it into Kim’s hands.
Over Kim’s shoulder I peered at the document on the clipboard. In the blank for contact and billing information was a name I didn’t recognize. ‘Who’s that?’ I asked Kim, tapping the name that was typed on the form.
‘Ginny’s the admin assistant for the county council.’
‘Jack Ames’s office?’
‘Bingo.’
‘And is this his signature at the bottom?’
‘It sure looks like it.’
How low would Jack Ames stoop to protect himself and his family?
‘Is there something in the basement that Jack Ames wants to keep buried?’ I whispered in an aside to Kim. ‘Or do you think he’s ordering this destruction on behalf of his father, Clifton Ames?’
Kim shrugged helplessly.
Owen held out his hand for the clipboard. ‘We have a job to do, ma’am. I’d appreciate it if you’d let us get on with it.’
‘We have personal items in the storage area,’ I told him, thinking quickly. ‘We’ll need to retrieve them.’
‘Make it snappy,’ he scowled and pantomimed checking his watch which, if he actually wore one, was hidden under layers of white, non-breathable fabric.
As Kim and I hurried into the courthouse, I glanced back over my shoulder. Owen was on his cell phone, presumably reporting this disruption to his supervisors.
In the basement, we found the door to the storeroom standing wide open, two BioClean employees stacking up boxes inside.
‘Out,’ Kim said. ‘Owen needs to see you.’
After the men departed, Kim and I glanced around. What could we save in the few minutes remaining to us?
‘If Jack Ames is behind this, it all has to go back to those land deals his grandfather made in the late forties and early fifties. He can’t make the actual land records disappear, of course, but without the indexes they’re much harder to find,’ she said as she lugged two heavy volumes out of the storeroom and reshelved them behind the paper towels and toilet paper in the main part of the basement. The marriage index with its beautiful red leather binding found a temporary home in a box of pot shards excavated from a dig behind St Timothy’s Church. Kim located the packet of letters written home by the World War I soldier and tucked them into the waistband of her jeans.
‘Just a bit of petty larceny while we wait for this mess to be sorted out,’ she said and reached for another box.
Feeling powerless, Kim and I watched from the front seat of my car as the BioClean workers carried ledger after ledger and box after box out of the courthouse basement and loaded them into their service van. I’d counted fourteen boxes, mostly old time cards and employment records, when Fran pulled up in her lipstick red Neon. She joined us, her cheeks glistening with tears. ‘I can’t reach anybody. All the offices are closed. Everyone must be at the fair.’
‘They picked this weekend on purpose,’ I fumed. ‘Date and time are specified right on the work order Owen showed me.’
I’d never felt sorry for Fran before, but as the three of us watched our carefully planned project evaporate out from under us, I, too, felt like weeping. There was a lot of junk in the storeroom, true, but who knew what treasures were still buried at the bottom of the boxes we hadn’t gotten to when Kim had ordered us to stand down and hand in our keys? And if Jack Ames had his way, we’d never find out. I thought back to the first time I’d met the politician when he’d come to welcome us – or so he claimed – to Tilghman County. He’d given me his business card. Told me to call any time. Did I still have it?
I rooted around in my handbag and finally located the card tucked between my Blue Moon Coffee Shop frequent shopper card – well-punched – and my Anne Arundel County voter registration card. Incredibly, it listed his cell. I dialed the number and got a chirpy recording that infuriated me: Hello. This is Jack Ames, your Tilghman County Council president. Remember me when you go to the polls in November.
Like hell I will, I snarled while waiting for his voicemail to kick in. He would be judging prize hogs about now, I figured, surrounded by beaming, fresh-faced 4Hers. After the beep, I told his voicemail, ‘Call off the hazmat team, Mr Ames. The jig is up. We both know what they’re looking for and they’re not going to find it at the courthouse.’
TWENTY-EIGHT
‘Politics is almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.’
Sir Winston Spencer Churchill, 1903
‘We’ve done what we can,’ I told the women after I hung up on Jack Ames’s voicemail. ‘We’ve saved a few of the important records, and I took photographs of some of the others.’
We were leaning against the front of Fran’s car, its hood still warm against my backside. ‘I wish I had a shotgun,’ Fran muttered. ‘I’d pick them off, one at a time as they come out the door. All that history! Don’t they realize that once it’s gone it’s gone forever?’
I laid a hand on Fran’s arm. ‘Maybe Jack Ames will get my message and show up. I’d like to believe that when he approved that work order he simply didn’t understand the historical significance of what we have here.’
Fran scowled. ‘Can he really be that stupid?’
I checked my watch, well aware that the clock on our records was ticking down. ‘Fran, why don’t you stay here with Kim? In the meantime, I’m going to the animal shelter. Fingers crossed I can stop the burning.’
It occurred to me that I didn’t even know where the animal shelter was. I could have waited and followed one of the BioClean vans, of course, but for what I planned to do I needed to beat them to the draw. Kim filled me in.
Ten minutes later, following Kim’s directions, I pulled into a parking lot on the outskirts of Elizabethtown where a large sign read: Tilghman County Humane Society. Deliveries in Rear. A single car was parked in the lot. From the humane society decal on the rear window I figured Grace had arrived.
As I climbed out of my car, I noticed that the property adjoined a vineyard. Rows of vines stood like silent sentinels in the gathering dark.
Someone was in the shelter; a light shone in one of the windows.
I parked and tried the front door, but it was locked. ‘Good girl,’ I muttered. Grace responded to my knock almost immediately, pushed the panic bar and let me in.
‘I was right, it is propane,’ she told me breathlessly. I followed Grace down a hallway and through two rooms of cages housing dogs, cats and rabbits awaiting reassignment to their forever homes. A droopy-eared spaniel, head on paws, stared out at me through the bars mournfully. Another dog, a terrier, began to bark, setting off a chain reaction. By the time we got to the far end of the room we were accompanied by a canine chorus of barks, yips and howls.
‘Someone’s already turned the incinerator on,’ Grace said. ‘Warming it up.’
‘Isn’t anyone here with the animals?’ I asked.
‘On weekends, we have staff that come in every four hours during the day to feed the animals and check up on things.’ She glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘It’s eight-thirty, so Sandy, our animal care assistant, will have been and gone.’
The door whooshed shut between us and the dogs. We were standing at one end of a long hallway.
‘There it is,’ Grace said, pointing to a large gray box installed in the wall at the opposite end. The door to the incinerator was at chest height. I paused, feeling
ill, thinking of all the animals that had perished there. I could almost hear their ghostly barks, pitiful meows, their agonized screams.
‘The controls are over here,’ she said, pointing to a wall panel where several indicators glowed green and orange. ‘I can switch it off by pushing this button, but when they get here they’ll just turn the gas on again.’
‘I’m surprised nobody is here from the shelter staff to supervise,’ I said. ‘I mean, if you or Sandy didn’t let them in, how did the incinerator get turned on in the first place?’
‘BioClean has a key,’ Grace explained. ‘Their contract with the shelter allows them to use the incinerator on weekends. Usually they’re getting rid of roadkill for the county. Raccoons, possums, deer. This is going to make you want to barf, but …’ She cocked an arm, deepened her voice and drawled, ‘This baby can process up to eight hundred pounds of euthanized companion animals at the rate of a hundred and fifty pounds per hour.’
Grace was right. I did feel like hurling, especially when she added, ‘We charge them twenty-five dollars for every one hundred pounds. Maintaining an incinerator can be expensive. There’s more to it than just fuel.’
‘Speaking of fuel,’ I said, ‘where’s the fuel tank?’
‘Follow me.’ Grace put the back door on the latch and flipped on an outside light.
The propane tank sat outside the building on a concrete slab. Pipes led from the bottom of the tank and through the wall into the back of the building. There was an on/off valve at the top but, like the furnace inside, that would be easy enough to turn back on. I knelt and examined the connectors. I tried turning one of the nuts that connected the threaded brass couplers with my fingers, but it wouldn’t budge.
I swiveled my head to look up at Grace. ‘Do you have any tools? A wrench, maybe?’
‘Who are you talking to? I’m a contractor’s wife. Dwight keeps a spare toolbox in the trunk.’
Grace came back a few minutes later carrying a wrench in one hand and a pair of vice grips in the other. ‘Let’s try the wrench first,’ I said.
Daughter of Ashes Page 18