Ashwood

by Cynthia Kraack

  “Well, I was only going to say that he needs to know we’ll work up every available chain of command to make sure Ladd is returned safely. That includes disclosing his blackmail of Barbara.”

  “I’m not sure we can prove the blackmailing part. He made deposits into an account in her name. It could be argued she was involved in criminal activity, skimming off the products of an estate.” David hadn’t been there to see Barbara escorted off Ashwood by Bureau security. He didn’t know her name had been erased from estate ranks.

  “He promised her safe transport to Europe.”

  “Thats what Barbara said, but we have no real proof.” The transport bumped over a rutted stretch. I put a hand on the seat, saw his eyes follow my motion. “Let’s hear him out, get our boy and buy ourselves time to think through the next part of the problem.”

  David took a breath, lifted a hand to make a point, but I cut him off.

  “David, I need a few moments to collect my thoughts. This meeting is important for Ashwood, but also for my career.”

  He turned to the window, his hand falling back to his lap. I wondered if this very competent man felt himself hemmed in by a renowned wife and a young female manager. I moved past the thought, not responsible for keeping his ego intact.

  My first impressions of Ashwood rushed back as we drove along miles of rust-colored stucco walls announcing the beginning of the Giant Pines estate. Dirty snow crusted with ice chunks highlighted the wall’s deterioration and gave the impression of a maximum security facility. No giant pines poked above the almost invisible blue line atop the stucco walls. The estate could afford laser technology to reinforce its boundaries. Even in the brightness of a winter’s day what happened at Giant Pines happened in privacy. We might have been safer with Lao trailing us if I hadn’t been so hasty in making decisions.

  I looked behind at an empty roadway, then turned around to silence. With the privacy window now down, Van’s apprehension was visible in the way he gripped the transport’s steering stick, glanced at the map screen, sat stiff in his seat. David appeared to watch the Giant Pines’ stucco wall, his hands spread over his legs.

  “Finally,” I said when pine trees did show over the top of the walls. “Just when I thought Rust Belt or Rural Prison would be a more appropriate name for this estate.”

  Neither man responded to my nervous comment.

  “How much longer to the gates, Van?”

  “Another five minutes, Matron. The locator isn’t clear which entrance is open.”

  “Thank you. I guess they’ll let us know.”

  We passed the first gate, a plain gray metal set up with no relation to its rust stucco surroundings. Low roof profiles suggested this entrance served laborers, production transports, and deliveries. We passed a second gate five minutes later, this one double wide and crafted from more decorative black metal.

  “Your Ladd is in one of these buildings,” Van volunteered. “Probably the estate office and staff housing. Maybe a production building.”

  We passed a third gate farther down the road, again plain grey metal construction just the width of a door. “Giant” appeared to be a better description of the estate than “Pines” with only small clumps of rather standard pine trees showing through its gates.

  “There are only two more entrances to the place,” Van shared. “They made this estate by attaching smaller places to the original layout. May be the biggest I’ve seen.”

  What did Jensen want with Ashwood’s produce when land and infrastructure surrounded him? Ashwood could fit in a third of Giant Pine’s stucco walls. The fields, barns, and greenhouses possible on this estate could provide a substantial market supply.

  We drove past Giant Pines’ ornate main gate—old Southwest and Prairie styling in an unusual combination of wood and metals. The stucco looked better maintained between an assortment of pines and evergreens. A teenage worker sat in a guard booth, a luxury for any residence, to watch our transport continue past the estate’s primary entrance.

  At Giant Pines’ final entrance, a gate opened slowly as if questioning that we should be allowed in to the estate. Van turned the transport onto the drive. I wondered if Jensen thought leading us to the estate’s back door was a fine show of arrogance.

  “Van, please wait here for us and send me a message if you must move. If we’re not out or you don’t receive some communication from me in fifteen minutes then contact whomever you’ve been keeping up to date in your Bureau.”

  “Good luck, Matron.” He turned slightly as he stopped the transport. “You look good going into battle,” he added with a smile and tip of the head.

  A girl worker of Amber’s age, waited for the transport door opening. She wore drab outdoor clothing and yard boots many sizes too large. Her face, neither thin nor rounded, showed little interest in new visitors.

  “The Senior Executive Director Jensen is waiting in the office building for you, Matron Anne. Your driver dawdled.” She tripped over the word, not thoroughly prepared to deliver this scolding told to her by an adult. “Follow me.”

  As I exited the transport, I looked around at the courtyard leading us to the business office building of Giant Pines. David stepped out behind me, taller than many intellectuals of our age. The worker looked up to his face, stopped, confused.

  “The Senior Executive Director Jensen is waiting in the office building for you, Matron Anne,” she said with emphasis on my name and less certainty in her little girl voice.

  “Yes, well, I’ve brought along Research Director David. You can go ahead to announce the change.” I started walking toward the office building entrance.

  “Stop.” The child, maybe four feet tall, stood her ground. “He has to go back. No one disobeys Senior Executive Director Jensen.” She raised a small, weather-chapped hand to David. “Please go back.”

  I walked forward, dismissing the child, irritated someone would put her into a greeting role. David followed, silent. The worker ran ahead, and it was hard to not see her as a child fearing a reprimand.

  “Is this the building?” I asked her.

  “Please, Matron. You have to obey. You have to.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Gerta.”

  “Gerta, you’ve done your job. You followed instructions. But I’m an adult visitor with serious business and follow different rules.” I wanted to touch her shoulder, give her a smile, but she was not under my direction.

  We stood at a glass door etched with “Jensen’s Giant Pines, Inc.” a shocking title on a government estate property. The door opened to a foyer the size of my sleeping room and cluttered with an assortment of late twentieth century expensive furnishings built of marble and leather and exotic woods. A large mirror, not unlike the one in Ashwood’s formal gathering room, reflected back the chaos. Under clear glass flooring, a leather loop area rug covered part of an elaborate tiled surface.

  With a quick step backward, David pushed me aside and propped open the outside door. Surprised, I thought he was ready to bolt. His eyes drew me close. Keeping a foot in the door jam, he lifted up a hand as if to move a strand of my hair. I stepped back.

  “The air has an odd smell. Hold your breath,” he whispered in the moment required to bring his hand up. “Excuse me for being so personal,” he said out loud as he moved back to a more appropriate distance. “I thought I saw a spider in your hair.” Motioning to his foot, he continued, maybe for a security camera. “Something in the air is bothering my allergies. If you don’t mind the cold, I’d like to keep the door open.” With chairs everywhere, we remained standing.

  I’ve never seen a shorter man than the person who opened the passage into the offices. He stood maybe ten inches taller than little Gerta, wore mismatched suiting crossing the last three decades of styles with a quilted vest made from swatches of orange, raspberry and teal silk. The face of a large watch extended beyond his skinny wrist. A band of perfectly trimmed gray hair ran from one ear to the other around the back of a
small, delicate head. Spots on his hands and scalp could be better trusted as age markers than a face surgically cleared of wrinkles, laugh lines, or any natural creases.

  He gestured us through while holding the door open with his entire body. David moved from the far end of the foyer in a few strong steps, reached above the little man’s head to take the door’s weight.

  “You are …” I asked before stepping through.

  “Who do you think I am?” he snapped back in a voice laced first with nasal-like hints of the southern Indiana hills then finishing with soft female tones. “I have no patience for people who insult me with questioning that a senior executive director needs to be as tall as a brainiac research man.”

  “No offense was meant, Senior Executive Director Jensen. Few people of your status would answer the door personally.”

  “Well, few estate matrons would have the brass to question the actions of my staff.” He stepped aside, allowing the full weight of the door to rest on David’s hand, while standing in such a way that I was forced to squeeze against the satin vest.

  The inner office area continued the aged opulence of the foyer accommodating mahogany work stations with granite work surfaces and sleek European lighting from some twentieth-century executive suite. In the background I heard music by Coldplay, early century favorites of my mother. A large wicker basket filled with what we called junk food when I was a child anchored the center of a round coffee table. Almost more than Jensen, the small bags of corn chips and foil-wrapped candy bars fascinated me. Where did a company exist today capable of producing so much food with so little nutritional value?

  “Don’t stare, missy. Yes, it’s all real, but you’re not here for trick or treat.” Jensen stood near the low round table, picked up a peanut butter and chocolate candy bar, which he offered to David. “I know this is your Dakota farm boy’s favorite, so why don’t you sit down and be a good research director while Ashwood’s matron and I do business.”

  He turned his back on David, lowered his soft voice to a sad imitation of a threatening macho man as he spoke to me. “We can get our talking done here, or you stand a better chance of getting what you want if you give me some of what I want in the privacy of my office.” Either a speech impediment, or some sordid thinking, produced juicy sounds under his words.

  “Director Jensen, I’m here because your staff threatened individuals at Ashwood today with demands for illegal diversion of our products to your private corporation and possible blackmail if we do not play along. More important, adults observed one of our workers being assisted into a Giant Pines’ transport. That child has not returned to Ashwood.” I stood back on my heels, my spine straight and my hands quiet at my sides. My revulsion for the man, his behavior and surroundings made calm feel easy.

  Jensen threw a candy bar over a shoulder, nearly hitting David in the chest. David took a step forward.

  Ignoring the distraction, I directed the conversation. “My first priority is safe return of the child.”

  “You’re acting big for a rookie.” The gnome stepped closer, the smell of his unwashed body now a part of our interaction. “There’s not been a matron wearing the gold earpiece within this region before, a woman who knows fully what it means to be a woman.” He brushed his shoulder against my arm. “We could renegotiate Barbara’s agreement in the time it takes for that boy to walk here. The big goon can watch for the kid while we step into my office. That’s my second invitation. You might not get a third.”

  I backed away, a fractured version of a song popular when I was a girl filling the brief silence between Jensen’s verbal slime and David’s curse. My early calm disappeared as I counted my breaths, mentally relaxed my forehead and neck, and flexed my out-of-sight toes instead of my visible hands. Looking beyond the small man’s head, I concentrated on a majestic pine about fifty feet beyond the east-facing window. Moving slightly, I saw the exact majestic pine through another window, then another, and realized we were not in the estate business offices, but a strange trap set by Jensen.

  In that moment I knew David had saved me from being raped or worse by this insane man. From a big foot propping open the outside door to his alert sentinel role in this place of horrors, I owed him.

  Jensen placed a small hand to his crotch, “I found your mother’s favorite music to calm you down, Ms. Anne Hartford. Remember dancing to this in your living room?”

  “Call Ladd’s release order to your staff right now. If you don’t, I’ll report it to local authorities as an abduction.” Not one of us moved, not one of us blinked. “And, we will not be sending you Ashwood products. I manage Ashwood within the law.”

  His sneer—a small mouth stretched across an old, oily, graying stretch of skin-opened into a smile revealing overly large white teeth. He chuckled, shook his head, brought his hands together and cracked his knuckles as he spoke.

  “You’ve got a lot going for you that Barbara didn’t as an old hag. I’d say there’s a good set of tits under that uniform that’ll lose their spring before somebody gets to enjoy them. I’d forget your little estate’s contractual obligation for a few play sessions at mine.”

  Stepping farther from David, Jensen spoke slower. “But, if you don’t want to play by those rules, I’ll set out a second offer: Either you fulfill your side of the contract, or I will release enough information about the illicit drug use of Ashwood’s chief party girl, also known as the big goon’s wife, to kill her reputation in the energy world and make sure the little Regan babies are given to more deserving parents. No one wants to put a surrogate’s precious bundle into the hands of a cocaine-sniffing, promiscuous mother.”

  No doubt existed in my mind that Jensen had the evidence to bring about Tia’s downfall.

  “You stinking little pervert,” David uttered. “Look at this loony bin setting and remember you abducted an innocent kid.”

  I interrupted David’s outburst. “Why do you want Ashwood’s production, Director Jensen?”

  He moved back closer to my side, again his smell filled our shared space.

  “There’s a market for the kind of quality that little Bohemian agronomist produces. Plenty of wealthy folks, the kind who rely on Giant Pines to set their tables, respect the Ashwood brand. Substitutes have proven to be unsuitable.”

  David and I exchanged looks. “I don’t believe you’d assume such risk for your private business,” I said trying to feel my way through the situation. “You have too much at stake.”

  Jensen tossed his head back, moved his hand to my forearm, nails exerting pressure through my clothing. “Smart young thing, aren’t you. Actually, what I want is that sweet water reclamation system the party girl developed. The DOE’s never going to make it available at an acceptable price until the patent expires. With that system, Giant Pines could stay on top of the market through any weather conditions. That’s the golden nugget.”

  Still holding my arm, he sniffed loudly, then swiped his other sleeve across his dripping nose. “If I thought I could control Trollop Tia I wouldn’t be bothering with the two of you, but she’s fickle. What makes her swoon in the morning can be tossed aside after lunch. You picked an expensive woman, Director David. A woman who’s busting your balls.”

  My earpiece buzzed, Van reported Ladd’s arrival. I pulled my arm from Jensen’s small hand. “Our worker is in the transport, and the gates are open, so I suggest we leave,” I said. “Come, Director David.”

  He surprised me by standing his own ground. “We’ve got work to finish here.”

  “The goon’s right, Matron.”

  “I don’t see it that way.” I stepped away from Jensen, hoped David would follow. “Our worker is in our transport. You know you can’t blackmail me or hold Ashwood hostage for your financial gain. And the water reclamation system, which is not owned by the Bureau, is not on the market. There’s nothing left for us to discuss.”

  I continued moving forward, wanted to take David’s hand to re-assure both of us that there wa
s a way out of Jensen’s craziness. We stepped through the office building’s glass doors. Jensen kept his hand on the large door.

  “Director Jensen,” I said before we walked away. “David and I have been taping this meeting, one of us directly into a secure databank. There are enough individual incidents of laws broken in the last fifteen minutes to take you out of this estate and your position. Let’s consider our silence an equal exchange for destruction of that information about Director Tia. I’ll tear up the contract, and we’ll forget today happened.”

  Jensen disappeared, the door closed on the office building. Through the etched glass door, the odd collection of late twentieth-century furnishings was all we could see.

  “Let’s get out of here,” David said and put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry for all those comments that scum made to you. You don’t deserve it.”

  “And I’m sorry you had to hear Tia described so crudely.”

  “It’s you I worry about.” David opened the transport’s door, pushed me inside.

  Under the anger and fear in my gut, a small feeling of comfort opened with David’s words. I stored that feeling for later as I saw Ladd in the transport, his face suggesting deep fear. He wore tattered clothing and summer sandals instead of his Ashwood uniform.

  Van barely let us settle on either side of Ladd as the transport doors closed. Then our driver showed his stuff, rocketing out through Giant Pines’ slowly closing gate.

  Transports don’t travel at high speeds, but Van did what he could to put distance between us and Jensen.

  23

  We rode the first mile along the rust-colored stucco walls, in silence. Ladd sat deep in his seat, fingers clenching the rough fabric of his pants, expressionless face turned toward the windows.

  “Are you all right, Ladd?” He lifted his head, but his eyes remained guarded. He said nothing. “We’ll talk when we get home.” I noticed scratches on his hands, deep across the back on one. Had he struggled with his abductors? “What happened to your clothes?”