The Lost Constitution

by William Martin

  “Surprised the hell out of me,” said Evangeline. “Sneaking up on us without making a sound. On a gravel driveway, no less.”

  Cottle smiled, but only his mouth moved. “Part of the job description.”

  Bishop turned it into a joke. “The first thing I ask when I hire a man: Can you sneak up on someone? A good skill to have in corporate security. Now, Sara and I are expecting you to stay for dinner.”

  Bishop led them into the house, into the study, where three plasma HDTVs were tuned to three different channels. While he poured drinks, he kept up a line of chatter that seemed to reveal everything about him while revealing almost nothing.

  Among his tidbits: He was only semi-retired because there was just too much going on for a man with his power to withdraw from the world. He liked Litchfield because it was rural, but he could get to New York in two hours for meetings, get to Fenway in two hours for ball games. He let his son run the company, while he worked on repealing the Second Amendment. And he still got to ride his horses. This combination of political purpose and activity in the saddle, he said, had given him renewed vigor.

  As if on cue, in came Sara Wyeth.

  Peter caught Evangeline’s eye, and he knew that she knew what he was thinking—any old man would have renewed vigor if he spent it in the saddle with this one.

  Sara looked about thirty years younger than Bishop, and apparently a natural blonde. Whether her other assets were natural or man-made, they proclaimed that here was a woman who took care of herself and could take care of herself, too, man or no man.

  She offered her hand to Peter and Evangeline.

  “We met online,” said Charles Bishop.

  “One of Charles’s silly jokes,” she said. “I have a PR firm in Boston. Charles is a client.”

  “I was trying to buy the Red Sox network,” said Charles. “I was looking for some local presence in Boston.”

  “I provide presence,” said Sara. “If Fallon Antiquaria is looking for a little more ink in the Boston papers …”

  “My work requires discretion,” said Fallon. “The less attention the better.”

  “That’s why we’re happy that—” Bishop was suddenly distracted by something on one of the TV screens. He grabbed the remote and turned up the sound.

  “… absolutely convinced that the American people are ready for this repeal.” It was Harriet Holden. “So we’re pressing forward. And no amount of opposition from men in funny hats will change that.”

  Cut to a golf course at dusk, a man in a visored cap with the word PING on the crown.

  Evangeline said, “It’s—”

  Peter gave her an elbow. Subtle, but she got the point: Don’t say anything. Listen and learn.

  The face on the screen grinned. “Men wear hats like this when they play golf. And in some households, golf supports the Constitution by assuring domestic tranquillity….”

  Bishop turned down the sound. “Much better.”

  “Yes,” said Sara.

  “We put Harriet on yesterday with Kelly Cutter,” said Bishop.

  “We saw it.” Evangeline sipped her wine. “Kelly’s a pro,” said Bishop. “She gave a rational voice to the opposition. Tore the congresswoman to pieces.”

  “Who’s the guy in the Ping hat?” asked Peter.

  “The founder of a PAC called the Morning in America Foundation,” said Sara.

  “Morning in America,” said Evangeline. “Wasn’t that in a Reagan speech?”

  “A very good Reagan speech,” said Peter.

  “No such thing,” said Bishop.

  Peter gave Evangeline the eye: Don’t tell them that I voted for Reagan in ‘84.

  Evangeline looked at Bishop. “Who are they?”

  “Men with money,” said Bishop. “And they put it into right-wing causes that they want to support. You’ll find Morning in America money in the coffers of right-to-life organizations, anti-tax groups, the NRA—”

  “Don’t forget the pro-aerosol gang,” said Sara Wyeth.

  “What’s that?” asked Evangeline.

  “The guys who think that every scientist who dares to suggest that our lifestyle is endangering the earth is a Communist.”

  “Oh,” said Evangeline. “The ones who think the glaciers aren’t melting.”

  Peter could tell that Evangeline was relaxing. The wine was helping. It was a very good chardonnay, served in a nice glass. And she was in a roomful of people who thought a lot like her.

  Except, perhaps, for Don Cottle, who leaned against a bookcase with his arms folded, and listened. Peter studied him for reactions, but Cottle showed nothing. Not happy with this conversation, not upset. Just there.

  “Morning in America got started about twenty-five years ago,” said Bishop. “During the fight over the Equal Rights Amendment. The guy in the golf hat didn’t like that one.”

  “What’s his name?” asked Peter.

  “Marlon Secourt. Has homes in Florida, Newport, and Bar Harbor,” said Bishop. “And not a bad guy.”

  “He’s a buffoon,” said Sara.

  “He believes what he believes. He’s happy to be the opposition voice whenever we call him. I might even invite him to the ball game on Sunday.”

  Peter noticed Cottle look up, as if that was news he had not heard.

  Bishop kept talking. “Once in a while we put him on Rapid Fire to make the opposition look like … well like the lunatic fringe in a funny hat.”

  “A bit manipulative, isn’t it?” said Peter.

  “Of course it’s manipulative,” said Bishop. “The righties do it, too. Rush Limbaugh has the biggest radio audience in America, and every day, he whines about liberal bias in the media.”

  “There’s liberal bias on ANN,” said Peter. “You’re trying to make Harriet and her cause look good.”

  “We call it opinion molding,” said Bishop.

  Sara said, “I consider Harriet Holden a client, even though I’m not on her payroll. That’s how firmly I believe in her.”

  Bishop said to Peter, “She’s a client of yours, too, isn’t she?”

  “I can’t say,” answered Peter. “Discretion again,” said Bishop. “I like that. It means I can trust you.”

  OVER GRILLED VEAL chops and California pinot noir, they talked about the Red Sox. Once they got past the pitching match-ups for the World Series, Bishop explained that he had a soft spot for the Sox because of his first television station. He bought it in 1967, the year that they went from the bottom of the American League to the pennant. “The station held the license for the Red Sox in western Connecticut.”

  “That’s Yankee territory, isn’t it?” said Evangeline.

  “Not that year. Advertising rates went through the roof. Gave me the cash to buy another station. Bishop Media was born.”

  “Charles loves his own little creation myth,” said Sara.

  “It’s no myth,” growled Charles. “I had family money, brains, and ambition. It’s a hard combination to beat.”

  Then he waved for the butler to take the plates. He ordered coffees and dessert. “A marvelous Normandie tarte de pomme.” And he kept talking with the confidence of a man who expected attention whenever he spoke: “If the New England universe has a center, where people can come together in agreement, it’s Fenway Park.”

  “Is that why you invited us to the game on Sunday night?” asked Peter.

  “I’ve invited a lot of people, even Harriet Holden. It’s time to reason together over a certain document we call the lost Constitution.”

  “But if Harriet Holden is so important to you,” said Peter, “how is it that she didn’t know anything about this lost Constitution when she came to me?”

  Bishop laughed. “Here’s a life lesson: Never reveal anything to a politician unless you have to.”

  Cottle said to Fallon, “We didn’t expect her to go to you.”

  “I’m curious,” said Bishop. “Did you know what we were looking for when you came down here the other day and ha
d lunch with Don?”

  Peter shook his head.

  “See that,” said Bishop to Cottle. “I told you we should have gotten him on the case sooner. In just a few days, he’s gotten as close to this as we have in years.”

  “I have a good assistant,” said Peter.

  Evangeline had been watching Sara, studying her reactions. Peter’s remark snapped her attention. “What do you mean, assistant?”

  “Sorry,” said Peter. “Partner.”

  “On this case, at least,” said Evangeline. “It matters that much to me, too.”

  “Good,” said Bishop “I’m prepared to answer any questions. Give you any information. I have an electronic file with all sorts of papers I can send you.”

  “But remember,” said Cottle, “the use of Mr. Bishop’s knowledge must be for his benefit.”

  “Are you a corporate security chief or a lawyer?” aked Peter.

  “He has both kinds of muscle, so to speak,” said Bishop. “But everything is negotiable. We should at least agree upon a price for your services.”

  “I’m not offering my services,” said Peter. “They’re already committed.”

  Bishop kept talking. “If you find it, what’s your price?”

  “Already committed,” said Peter again. “And yes. It’s to Harriet Holden.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Cottle. “Do business with Mr. Bishop, or he’ll lay prima facie claim to the document.”

  “Prima facie,” said Evangeline. “He really is a lawyer.”

  Peter said to Bishop, “Prima facie because—”

  “Because my maternal grandmother was the goddamned daughter of Bartlett Pike. He ran the Pike Mill and some say ran it into the ground.”

  Peter said, “That makes you a cousin of Buster McGillis.”

  “Second cousin, once removed, I think. We didn’t have much in common.”

  “Did you know that his closest friend was murdered today?” asked Evangeline.

  “Murdered?” Bishop shot a glance at Cottle.

  Cottle didn’t blink. “What does that have to do with us?”

  “He was the broker of the Henry Knox letter you bought.” Peter watched for a reaction but got nothing. If they were hiding their emotions, they were good at it.

  Then Peter said, “You don’t know where the document is, and you can’t prove that you’ve ever held it in your hands. This might be one of those cases where—”

  “Possession is nine tenths of the law?” said Bishop. “So, what’s the document worth?”

  “As much as ten million dollars.”

  “To say nothing of its historical or political value,” added Evangeline.

  “Ten million.” Bishop looked at Sara. “A small price if we can get guns off the streets for good.”

  Sara said, “Bishop Media is doing the pre-game show on Sunday night. We plan to have a camera in the luxury box interviewing New Englanders who love the game and love America. If you have the document, we’ll put it on television. I call that thinking outside the luxury box.”

  “But what if it says nothing?” asked Peter.

  “We’ll think of something,” Bishop leaned back in his chair.

  “What if it’s negative?” asked Evangeline.

  “We’ll think of something,” repeated Bishop. “As I said, it’s all about opinion molding.”

  “I thought it was all about truth,” said Peter.

  “Just find it and bring it,” said Bishop.

  “Unless we find it first.” Cottle finished his drink.

  “We’ll be there Sunday night,” said Peter. “With the document or without.”

  THEY FINISHED DINNER around ten. Bishop invited them to stay the night.

  Evangeline looked at Peter, and a small flick of her eyes suggested they take what they knew and get out of there.

  Soon, they were speeding along the dark roads of Litchfield County.

  Peter checked the rearview. No lights.

  After a few miles, Evangeline said, “I told you that Cottle was lying after we had lunch with him.”

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “You’re the one who says we’re on the run.”

  “You’re the one who didn’t want to stay at Bishop’s.”

  “They were giving me the creeps. The media giant, the PR queen, the corporate security thug—”

  “And they’re on your side,” he said.

  “Are we bickering? We’d better not be bickering. If we start sounding like an old married couple, you can drop me in Hartford and I’ll get a train back to New York.”

  “We’re not going to Hartford.”

  “Then where?”

  “North. My instinct is that we’ll find more answers north,” said Peter.

  “When we get to someplace safe, we should e-mail these names to Antoine and Orson. Check Bartlett Pike of the Pike-Perkins Mill and Marlon Secourt of the Morning in America Foundation. Secourt wasn’t up at the Mount Washington just to play golf,” said Evangeline.

  “And not so much of a yahoo as we thought.”

  “Well, he was a yahoo.”

  Peter laughed. “A yahoo looking for something at the New England rarities convention. That was why Paul Doherty danced away from him when he started pushing Bloom around on the dance floor.”

  They didn’t drive far. The Litchfield Inn had a room with four hundred-line cotton sheets, down comforters, wireless Internet, and a full breakfast.

  They slipped into bed and read their e-mails.

  Nothing had come in from Charles Bishop.

  But Antoine had sent them biographical facts on George Amory: Date of graduation from Bowdoin, date of mustering out of the Twentieth, and several news stories from the Blackstone Weekly. One told of Amory’s return to the mill. Another, about fourteen months later: “Comings and Goings at the Pike Mill: Mr. George Amory has left the employ of the mill, it was announced today by Bartlett Pike. No reason was given. Mr. Pike says that Mr. Amory plans to travel in Europe. Also leaving at the same time was a young loomer, Sheila Murphy….”

  “Maybe they left together,” said Evangeline after she read it.

  “Maybe,” said Peter, who was drifting off to sleep.

  FIFTEEN

  August 1863

  IN THE NORTH WOODS, men were cutting timber.

  But in the mill, workers were summoned by the bell each day.

  In Europe, young people were exploring the ruins of the Colosseum and the corridors of the Louvre.

  But in the mill, two hundred shuttles flew in two hundred looms, causing a roar more deafening than all the cannon at Fredericksburg.

  In Pennsylvania, the Twentieth Maine was marching to glory.

  But in the mill, George Amory saw that the workers were working and the shuttles were flying, and nothing else mattered to a young man of business … or so he told himself.

  What he learned of the wider world now came to him in what he read, and if he was envious, he did not admit it to himself.

  Enos Turlock wrote and invited him to “come a-cuttin’ “: “You’ve no need to prove yourself to any man. But a season in the Maine woods will toughen you more than war or mill work. It’ll give you a skin so thick, nothing any man says or does will ever hurt you.”

  Cordelia wrote to him of the Grand Tour, which she was taking in company with three friends from school. Her letters were full of “sisterly” chitchat and not a hint of passion. “We have seen many churches, Notre Dame, Sainte-Chapelle, Chartres … For a country where the senses are well-served, France is certainly a spiritual country, too….”

  And the newspapers reported on the Twentieth at Gettysburg and the defense of a place called Little Round Top: “Imagine, if you can, nine small companies of infantry, numbering perhaps three hundred men, in the form of a right angle, on the extreme flank of an army of eighty thousand, put there to hold the key of the entire position against a force at least ten times their number. Stand firm, ye boys from Maine.”

/>   George Amory had stood firm, too, in the mill on the banks of the Blackstone.

  He had worked so hard and so well that he sensed Cousin Bartlett now considered him a threat. On the whole, he would have been happy to turn it all over and head for Europe, to find that gaggle of girls and go traveling with them. But his late grandfather had given him a chance to prove himself, and he would not betray the memory of the only man who had shown any faith in him after Fredericksburg.

  Once, George had believed that the path to self-dependence led away from places like the mill. But he had learned that sticking fast was the way to become a man.

  And he had a girl … of sorts.

  He could see her through the windows of his office. She was crossing the weave room, pretending to look for something she had dropped, so that if anyone asked her why she was there after hours, she would have an excuse.

  A lingering July dusk lit the room, but no one was working. The cotton supply had dwindled, so the mill no longer ran double shifts. The belts were still, the looms silent. Without the incessant click-cla-clack-cla-click-cla-clack, the quiet was like the surface of a pond disturbed by a few pebbles, a few footfalls made by a girl from Galway.

  George closed his ledger and slipped it into a bookcase. Then he pulled out a greenback dollar and put it on the desk.

  It was hot in the little office. The mill windows were kept closed because heat and humidity made cotton thread supple so that it would not break during the weave. In July the mills became steaming kilns along the riverbanks. Had it been practical to run with the windows open in winter, the mill managers would have done that, too.

  Her name was Sheila. She was still wearing an apron over her work dress. Rings of perspiration expanded on the gray fabric under her arms. Strands of hair dropped down around her cheeks. Her eyes seemed colorless when she looked at him.

  The first time she had come to him she had pinned her hair and worn her Sunday dress and smelled of soap. He had been disconcerted by her nervousness because it matched his own. Now she treated their visits as one more job of work.

  She stepped into the office and closed the door, then she pulled the shade, so that the office was almost dark.