*Seemingly endless applause, whoops and hollers from the crowd*
During the applause, Stephen glanced at Tarra and the Kays, who had been reserved seats in the front row. Tarra, who had been wearing a skeptical face at the outset of the meeting, was now smiling and clapping right along with the rest of the residents. He then thought to himself, “Damn, Claudine is pretty good at this! No wonder she became mayor in a landslide election.”
When the applause had finally died down, Claudine introduced each member of leadership and explained their roles to the residents. To Stephen’s pleasant surprise, she included Tarra in her introductions as Carrie’s new assistant! She even had Tarra stand up to be recognized by all the residents of The Park, who applauded with gratitude and praise. Tarra had sat back down with a grin and a flushed face. Stephen hadn’t seen color like that in her face in a very long time! He guessed that she was no longer upset about the “mandatory” meeting.
Once the introductions were complete, Stephen anxiously drew in a deep breath as Claudine opened up the meeting to questions from the audience.
“Okay…here we go…it’s showtime,” Stephen thought.
The first question regarded the rumors of two prisoners that had been captured during the assault on the park a few days ago. Ox nudged Fish’s arm and spoke out of the corner of his mouth to him, “Go ahead and take this one, I don’t know the whole story about that shit.”
Fish was a bit stunned, he had been comfortable just standing and smiling on stage, since he thought that Ox would be answering any security-related questions. However, he gathered his thoughts quickly and responded to the question with, “Those weren’t just rumors. During a well-orchestrated assault against The Park, we did, in fact, capture two turds near the boat landing in the west beach parking lot. They were turned over to Claudine and William for questioning. Unfortunately, during the interrogation the turds had used brute force to overpower the Probsts. Luckily, nobody was hurt, but…one of them was able to acquire a weapon from within the Probsts’ RV, and they escaped out the back door. We could not afford to allow them to get away, since they had already learned too much information about our operations here at The Park. Both turds heavily resisted during their recapture and were subsequently killed.”
At first, Stephen was shocked for a moment at how well Fish had responded to the question (except, of course, for the unnecessarily excessive usage of the word “turd”). But then he quickly realized that his best friend must have been coached prior to the meeting. Never before in Fish’s entire life had he ever used the words “well-orchestrated” or even “subsequently”. Stephen was beginning to understand the true level of how good Claudine really was.
The questioner from the audience was satisfied with Fish’s response, and sat down. However, Terry the golf-club-dude stood up and asked (without acknowledgment from any of the leaders), “So what did we learn from the prisoners? You had them for quite a while, you must have learned something!”
“We did,” Fish started, “they were from the Bowman group across the water. We were able to determine that information during a dying confession from one of the turds, who used his last sentence to warn us that his own people were no good. I think most of you are quite familiar with the Bowmen, and understand that they are never to be trusted.”
Many heads nodded in agreement within the audience. Even with Fish’s explanation, Terry wasn’t finished with his inquiry. He shouted, “That’s bullshit, you know more than what you are saying! I saw those prisoners, remember? They looked nervous and afraid. I don’t believe your story for one second. I bet you learned a lot more than what you are letting on, pal! We have a right to know!”
Most of the crowd didn’t appear to be in agreement with Terry. Some chatter arose as people whispered with each other. One man even yelled, “Sit down and shut up, Terry!”
Fish didn’t flinch, he seemed mentally prepared for that type of reaction, and responded to Terry with, “I think you should focus more on the fact that the whole park is safely surrounded by well-armed and faithful security teams 24 hours a day. They were the ones that were able to stop the invasion.” Fish leaned forward from the leadership line-up and pointed down to Bryan and his long rifle on the other side of the Probsts. Then he continued, “Me, Bryan and our beachers were able to stop a three-boat attack within minutes. Did you hear what I just said? Not one or two, but THREE boats! How many men could have unloaded off those boats if we hadn’t stopped them? Ten? Fifteen? Twenty? Let me ask you this, tough guy…what would you have been able to do against twenty men with your stupid golf club?”
The crowd laughed at Fish’s golf-club comment. Terry had, in fact, brought the “stupid golf club” with him to the meeting. He embarrassingly sat back down and remained silent, slowly hiding his cherished golf club under his legs.
Fish laughed, “That’s what I thought. Nothing! Those men would have steam-rolled the entire campground if we hadn’t stopped them. I think you should be a bit more thankful than – “
Claudine cut Fish off, saying, “Thank you, Fish, for your thorough explanation. Next question, please?”
A few of the residents raised their hands. One of which was Larry Paulson. “Ha! Fat chance, buddy. Claudine would never call on you…” Stephen thought. But then Stephen couldn’t believe his ears, because for some reason Claudine did call upon Larry to speak next! What in the name of Christ was wrong with her? She knew that he was, in one of Fish’s favorite terms, a “turd”. He couldn’t possibly have anything constructive to add to the meeting.
Larry wore an insidious smirk as he stood up and said very loudly, “Since we’re talking about rumors, I heard a rumor that the new resource manager ruined an entire batch of herring this morning! Is that true?”
Fish couldn’t believe it. He knew Stephen better than anyone else (except Tarra, of course), and refused to accept that Stephen would have done something so absurd. Stephen was way too methodical, too meticulous, too damn smart! Fish murmured to Stephen, “What the fuck? Is that true?”
“No, it isn’t. I got this,” Stephen whispered back to Fish before gathering himself for the impending confrontation with his nemesis.
A few of the fishermen in the crowd began talking amongst themselves. One of them called out, “It better not be true, I ain’t riskin’ my life out there on the water for nothing!”
Larry’s smirk grew wider as he listened to the upset fishermen behind him complaining about the wasteful usage of their dangerously hard-earned catch. He thought he finally had Stephen on the ropes, but guess what…
He didn’t!
Stephen addressed the angry fishermen first by saying, “All of your hard work is valued immeasurably, and what Mr. Paulson meant to say…was…that a batch of herring was almost ruined this morning. There was a mix-up with the wood that was placed in the smokers, however, my woodcutters and I were able to expunge the erroneous wood before any damage was done to the fish.”
Larry’s face went pale and his jaw dropped. His plan had been foiled. But…c’mon! He had waited so long for this moment! He couldn’t just let it go like that! Stupid Stephen had to be lying. There was no way that he could have got there in time to save all that fish. Convinced that Stupid Stephen was bluffing, Larry angrily spewed to the audience, “No, that’s not what I heard. I heard the whole batch of fish was ruined because that IDIOT on the stage used PINE instead of any one of the many hardwoods that we have available here in The Park.”
Stephen shook his head and said with a cunning smile, “Sorry, Larry, but you’re wrong.” He then began glancing around the audience for his woodcutters and spotted Prince, Craigger and the crew all sitting together toward the rear of the amphitheater. Stephen pointed them out, saying, “Prince, would you like to validate my illustration of what happened this morning? Were we not able to salvage every…single…precious piece of fish?”
Prince stood up and said, “Yes, sir.” Then he addressed the audience, “What Mr. Alexand
er is saying is correct. All the fish are good to go!”
It was Stephen’s turn to smirk at Larry. He cocked his head curiously at the defeated man and asked, “How did you come across this information, anyway?”
Larry was still rattled by the fact that his plan had backfired. He scowled at Stupid Stephen on the stage, crossed his arms, and then answered, “Um…all you need to know is that I heard it through the grapevine.”
People in the audience laughed at Larry. At least half a dozen people started mocking him with their own renditions of Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through The Grapevine”.
“Give me a name,” Stephen demanded through all the musical chatter in the crowd. Larry took up a defensive posture and made a dramatic zipping motion across his lips with his thumb and forefinger, as if he wasn’t about to be disloyal to some fictitious whistle blower out there (somewhere).
At this point Fish had enough, and stepped forward. He pointed and shouted at Larry, “Either give us a name or sit your fat ass down! We have serious business to conduct here, and you are just wasting all these good people’s time!”
Larry was being heckled now by the rest of the audience. The leaders wouldn’t need to do anything else, the crowd would do it for them. People shouted obscenities and scornful insults toward their former bully. Larry was at his wits end. He couldn’t stand the fact that Stupid Stephen was up on that stage instead of him. He couldn’t let Stephen “win” this one. No way, there was too much genius involved with the “pine plan”. But, nonetheless, he could no longer bear the outrageously disgraceful insults thrown in his direction, so he finally sat down.
After Larry was handled, the leadership fielded a few more random questions, mostly about Claudine’s policy regarding “working for food”. On a separate topic, a woman asked why the woodcutters no longer conveniently felled trees inside the park, which Stephen artfully answered. It seemed as though everyone in the audience was afraid to ask the most relevant, serious question about the recent murder within The Park.
When the question was finally popped, Claudine stepped forward from the line of leaders and addressed the audience herself. She replayed the murder for the crowd by reciting all of the facts obtained through Carrie’s investigation. Many in the crowd were shocked. There were gasps and chatter between the residents. Then Claudine made her official announcement.
“I must warn all of you that vigilante actions will NOT be tolerated whatsoever. In response to the recent criminal activity within The Park, I am proud to announce that we have appointed former Oak Harbor police officer Alexis Tillman as the new ‘Sheriff’ of Deception Pass.”
Claudine paused to allow the news to sink in. Two-thirds of the crowd applauded the appointment, the other third was either too skeptical or shocked to celebrate the honor. A majority of the residents had turned around in their seats to lay their eyes on the new sheriff, who was still standing behind the amphitheater near the trees next to Hal Hollingsworth. She humbly waved at the residents, and many continued to clap until Claudine spoke again.
“Additionally, we have acquired a shipping container that will serve as our temporary detention compound until a more permanent option is established.”
The audience’s reaction to that statement was mixed. Some were nodding in agreement, others were shaking their heads with disgust. One of the fishermen seated in the middle of the amphitheater stood up and shouted, “You can’t do that! You can’t just lock people up!”
Claudine sighed and then addressed the fisherman, “I know that you are one of our herring producers, and we certainly appreciate your efforts and value your opinion. But…let me ask you a question. Aren’t your wife and children alone while you are out on the water? Did you even know that there was a murderer among us? Wouldn’t you rather have those individuals seeking to do harm safely detained under strict supervision where they can no longer hurt the ones you love?”
The fisherman sat back down and said nothing. He must not have thought about what Claudine said before his outburst.
“Very well,” Claudine began, “now let’s resolve this murder business once and for all.”
Stephen suddenly felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. It must have been how Claudine had said those words. Something huge was about to go down, he just knew it.
Claudine stepped backward and rejoined the line of leaders on the stage, then said, “Pay close attention to this. We’re offering a reward for information leading to the capture of the man responsible for this crime. Anyone that can provide us with information directly related to the murder…or…the name of the man that was having an affair with Julia Hollingsworth will be granted permanent, unlimited access to the provisions at sites 17 and 18.”
Stephen gulped as at least a dozen hands shot up in the audience. “Ohhhh, shit!” Stephen said to himself and looked up at Fish next to him, who was grinning hard as if he knew it was coming.
Near the rear of the amphitheater, a man in his mid-twenties wearing a camouflage hunter’s jacket and a faded camo ballcap suddenly leapt from his seat and bolted towards the forest.
“Stop him!” Claudine ordered and pointed at the fleeing suspect. Hal and Alexis, who were already in the vicinity, took off after the man. A few of Hal’s loyal gatekeepers had taken up pursuit behind them as well. Even though Hal was middle-aged, short and somewhat stocky, he was surprisingly quick on his feet. As he caught up with the camo guy, he removed his handgun. For a moment, Stephen thought that Hal’s rage was about to get the best of him, and he was gonna blow a few holes into the man’s back in front of over a hundred witnesses. But instead (thankfully), Hal pistol-whipped his wife’s former beau between the shoulder blades. Camo guy went down with a loud yelp onto his side and rolled onto his back. Hal had struck the man so hard that the faded ballcap had lifted off the guy’s head. It parachuted toward the ground in the same direction that the man had been running, as if it had chosen to continue fleeing on its own accord.
Hal pounced, and straddled the fallen man’s chest with his powerful legs, which effectively pinned the struggling man’s arms to the ground.
The crowd in the amphitheater gasped in horror as Hal suddenly raised his pistol by the barrel, as if he was about to smash the camo guy’s face into a pulp with the butt end of it.
“You motherfucking sonofabitch!” Hal bellowed right before his gatekeepers snatched him off the camo guy by his arms. Hal never got his vengeance at that moment. He tried to struggle his way out of the gatekeepers’ grasp, but there were too many of them. “Let me go! Let me go!” he screamed, but his devoted men intended on keeping their boss out of trouble by holding him fast.
Alexis flipped the camo guy onto his stomach and gleefully handcuffed him. The man pleaded with her, crying, “I didn’t do it, I swear! I loved her!”
Alexis said in a loud voice as she got camo guy on his feet, “Whatever…you ran. Only the guilty run. And that’s a fact, jack.”
On the stage, Stephen heard Claudine say to herself as she watched Alexis march the camo guy away, “Hmmm, that was easy.”
Chapter 12
Stephen, Fish, Tarra and the Kays all walked together from the amphitheater back to site 199. Wolf had caught up with them half way there and begged to tag along, which Fish allowed, of course.
Stephen had asked Fish if he knew about Claudine’s plan to weed out Julia’s murderer, and Fish had admitted that he did, saying, “Why do you think Hal and Alexis were standing in the back instead of on stage with the rest of us?”
Tarra said, “That was pretty intense. I thought Hal was going to kill that guy!”
“Yeah, me too,” Stephen added. “I’m glad he didn’t.”
When the group reached site 199, it was almost eleven AM. All were hungry, so Stephen dug out a box of chicken-flavored noodle mix and a cookpot from the back of Fish’s truck.
Stephen said to everyone, “I am pretty sure that the herring are cooked by now. I’ll bike out to the wood station and pick som
e up.”
The Kays screeched, “Yay! Yummy fishies!”
Stephen smiled at his girls and then asked, “Who wants to cook the noodles while I’m gone?”
Tarra assumed that Stephen was just joking around, and was only referring to her (Fish couldn’t cook for shit), but Wolf cheerfully volunteered instead.
“Do you know how to cook, big guy?” Stephen asked him.
“Yup! I do it for my mom all the time. She’s been really quiet and lazy since Mr. Doug died. Sometimes, she doesn’t even get out of our tent,” Wolf explained.
Tarra walked over and rubbed Wolf’s back. She said to him, “Aw, honey, I’m so sorry. She’s very lucky to have such a strong young man like you.”
“Thanks Ms. Tarra,” Wolf said.
Stephen found a medium-sized plastic bowl with a lid that sealed tightly. He placed it under his arm and grabbed his mountain bike by the handlebars away from the tree that it had been leaning against. He was about to pedal off when Pharaoh started vigorously barking and Tarra shouted, “Stephen, wait!”
And Pharaoh wasn’t the only dog barking. Dogs all over The Park were barking too.
Something was wrong. No, something felt wrong. Everyone stopped what they were doing and went silent.
The ground was moving.
One of the Kays shouted, “Daddy, what is that?”
“Sshh! Quiet honey!” Stephen snapped as he looked up at the treetops. They were swaying slightly back and forth. Not the kind of swaying that a wind caused, either. His suspicions were confirmed as shouts erupted from residents at other sites.
THE COLLAPSE: Seeking Refuge Page 19