The Lost Constitution

by William Martin

  Mercer glanced at the other table, then said to the judge, “I don’t know why you’re invitin’ media snoops up here. Keep them in Massachusetts. Let them leave us the fuck alone.”

  “Mercer!” The man at the other table stood now, turned, walked toward them. He was as tall as Mercer but rail thin, in his forties, wearing shirt and tie as if he had just come from a desk job. A shaft from the skylight lit his face, revealing the wrinkled white flesh of an old burn, a scar running from his collar to his hairline. His “Afternoon, folks” was only a bit warmer than his appearance.

  “This is Jack Batter,” said the judge. “Damn fine lawyer and a crack shot.”

  “Forgive Mercer here,” said Batter, “but this Second Amendment business has us all a bit jumpy. We’re in for a fight.”

  “We’re going to win,” said Mercer. “No matter what they write in Boston.”

  “If the repeal amendment makes it out of committee,” said Batter, “we’ll fight it in Congress. If it gets out of Washington, we’ll fight it in the Maine legislature and every other state house in the country.”

  “These people may be here to help,” said the judge.

  “Help?” Batter’s smile lifted the right side of his face but not the scarred left.

  “With Massachusetts plates?” said Mercer. “I don’t believe it.”

  One of the other guys shouted across the room, “These cards are gettin’ cold.”

  Batter turned to Mercer. “If they’re here to help, let them be.”

  The judge watched them go back to their game.

  “So,” said Peter. “What do they play? Texas Hold ’Em?”

  “Mainiac Bluff,” said the judge.

  “Never heard of it,” said Peter.

  Evangeline said, “It’s what we’ve been getting since we got here.”

  “Good bluffers in Maine,” said the judge. “Straight-faced. Laconic. Like they write about.” He leaned a little closer, lowered his voice. “So don’t try to bluff me when I ask a simple question: What do you know?”

  “About what?”

  “They say you’re the best document sleuth around. And you’re the first one to find his way to the Aaron Edwards papers, which tells me a lot. What drew you to them?”

  Peter looked around, as if to say that the walls might not have ears but the guys at the bar certainly did.

  So the judge stood and said, “Come with me.”

  “PULL!“

  A clay disc shot into the air and slashed across the sky. There was a blast from the judge’s Remington 1100 and the clay pigeon evaporated.

  “Nice shot,” said Peter. He was wearing orange safety glasses and ear protection.

  “No one will listen to us out here.” The judge handed him the gun. “Let’s see what you can do.”

  Peter took it, aimed, called, and blast. A spray of buckshot flew, but the clay disc kept spinning off into the trees.

  “It’s been a while.” Peter handed the judge back the gun.

  “Don’t apologize,” said Evangeline.

  “Would you like to try?’ asked the judge.

  “Try what?” she said. “Shoot?”

  The judge smiled. “The best way to achieve empathy with a man is to walk a mile in his shoes or in this case, sight down his barrel.”

  “Why judge … sight down your barrel? What’s a girl to say?”

  And Peter noticed a change in her. She took the gun from the judge, slipped three shells from his shooting vest and loaded them as though she had done it a hundred times. Then she said, “You know what we’re looking for, Judge. You know more about it than we do.”

  The judge said, “Pull!”

  The clay disc shot into the air.

  Evangeline blew it to powder. She flicked her hair, gave Peter a look, then asked the judge. “So? Am I right?”

  “My middle name is Amory,” he said. “I had a great-uncle who knew the story. Gilbert Amory. Of course, no one listened to him. No one cared back when. Pull!“

  Another disc. Another shot. Another hit.

  Peter whistled softly.

  “My ex-husband liked to shoot,” she said. “He taught me.”

  “Not a good move, teaching your wife how to handle a shotgun,” said Peter, “even if you’re as faithful as a swan.”

  “Which he wasn’t,” she said.

  “Pull!” shouted the judge.

  Blast.

  A third shell ejected and lay smoking on the ground. A third hit. Evangeline flipped the gun back to the judge. “I believe that the first clause of the Second Amendment—‘A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state’—gives us the right to make rational adjustments to the second clause—‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.’ “

  The judge shouldered the shotgun. “I’ve spent years upholding the most rational collection of laws ever devised, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. And I’ve been trying to find this document since I first found hard evidence of the family legends.”

  “When was that?”

  “When I retired from the bench, two years ago. I took up a sedentary hobby, for when it’s too cold to be outside shooting. Genealogy. I was researching my great-grandfather. He’d been mustered out of the Twentieth Maine after being shot in the foot. There was always a hint that he did it to himself. Studying him led me to the Edwards diary.”

  “And you’ve been digging ever since?”

  “No … only since the repeal movement began. We can argue over that ‘militia’ clause forever. But an annotated first draft may tell us something we should know.”

  “For starters,” said Peter, “you should know that I’ve been hired by Harriet Holden.”

  “Can we hire you away?”

  “What makes you think we’ll find it if you haven’t in two years?” asked Peter.

  “You’re a professional. Most lawyers—and judges are just lawyers who knew politicians—most lawyers pretend to know everything about everything, and even if they don’t, they always have an opinion.”

  “Often wrong but never in doubt,” said Evangeline. “I’ve dated lawyers.”

  “But one of the merits of getting older is coming to understand how little you know,” the judge went on. “You’re the best document hunter around, and you’re looking for that Constitution. I’m willing to give you my research.”

  “Why?”

  “If the men who left their scratchings on the draft say that the Second Amendment means something less than I think it does, I’ll reconsider. But I’m willing to gamble that they were on my side.”

  “On your side or not, their handiwork will be worth a fortune,” said Peter.

  “True.” The judge opened his gun case—foam lining inside, shiny aluminum outside. He pulled out a manila envelope bursting with papers—copies of handwritten letters, diary pages, newspaper articles. “My research. If you find the draft, I’ll expect you to make an assessment of how this material has helped you and what it’s worth to you. If you cheat me, I’ll sue you. And trust me. I’m a professional at that.”

  “But a real lawyer would insist on a contract,” said Peter.

  The judge put out his hand. “There’s my contract. See you in Boston.”

  “THAT WAS A New Englander.” Peter started down the road. “Salt of the earth.”

  “Don’t look now,” said Evangeline, “but here comes ‘salt in the wounds.’ “

  Two ATVs were popping up from a gully to their right.

  Two more were emerging from the stream bed to their left.

  Mercer was driving one. The guys driving the others looked like him, just a bit scrawnier, a bit dirtier.

  “How far are we from the main road?” asked Evangeline.

  “Not far enough.”

  Evangeline pulled out her phone. “Did you write down the judge’s cell number?”

  Peter flipped her a little spiral notebook. “It’s in the back.”

  The ATV
s were bouncing over fallen logs, closing on the BMW like wolves around a moose.

  “Peter, there are numbers here, but no names. Which is the judge’s?”

  “Uh … bottom one.” He swerved to avoid a big pothole and bounced into a bigger one.

  The phone flew out of Evangeline’s hands. It almost flew out the open sunroof.

  “Jesus, Peter. Watch it.” She picked up the phone, switched it to walkie-talkie, punched in a series of numbers.

  The ATVs on the right had now burst over a little embankment. The ones on the left were growling over the stream bed and rising up from below.

  The phone rang, a voice crackled: “Bowdoin College. Rare books.”

  “Goddamn it.” Evangeline disconnected. “Peter, when you write down a phone number, write down a name.”

  “Try the next Maine area code.”

  Mercer pulled in front of them and began to slow. The other ATVs closed in on either side. One of them dropped to the rear, boxing him in. A perfect takedown.

  “Judge Trask,” said the voice on phone. “Judge,” said Evangeline, “we’re down the road. We need help. It’s Mercer.”

  “I’ll be right there,” said the judge.

  Mercer waved his arm for Peter to stop. Then he got off his ATV and walked over to the driver’s side.

  Peter didn’t roll down the window, but Mercer was big enough that he could lean his face in the sunroof.

  “The judge is coming down the road right now.” Evangeline began to fumble in her purse. “And I have Mace.”

  “Oh yeah?” Mercer laughed and blew hot beery air down on their heads, then he slapped his hip. “I have a .44 Magnum, most powerful handgun in the world—”

  Peter looked at Evangeline. “Now he thinks he’s Dirty Harry.”

  “He’s half right,” she said.

  “What does she mean?” said Mercer.

  “Half of Dirty Harry means you’re just … dirty.”

  As if he were smacking a little sister, Mercer reached in and whacked Evangeline on the top of the head. “You shut the fuck up, lady, or you’ll—”

  And Peter had enough. Fight or flight. No room for flight. And the Magnum was not yet out of the holster, so fight. Plain and simple.

  He shot his fist straight up, right into Mercer’s nose.

  Then he opened his door, slamming it into Mercer’s belly and throwing him over one of the ATVs.

  But the other two on that side were coming at him.

  They were both street brawlers. So was Peter. Every kid who grew up in Southie was a brawler, even if he ended up at Harvard.

  So Peter ducked the first punch from the left, and drove his hand straight into the guy’s beer gut, knocking the air out of him for a moment and the fight out of him for a few moments more.

  The other guy had his fists high, so Peter slammed an elbow up under his chin and sent him staggering.

  And now the fourth was scrambling over the hood. Peter turned to face him and heard a snort from behind. The beer gut had sucked in some air and some fight, too.

  Peter decided he should have stayed in the car. He had hit three of them with his best shots, and they were still coming. So … hold on till the cavalry arrives.

  He turned and drove his fist into the big guy’s nose.

  At the same moment, he was struck from the side and slammed against the car. One guy hit him. Then the other. Then Mercer shouted, “Grab his arms. Pin him.”

  The one on Peter’s right tried to do that, and Peter pushed him away.

  The one on the other side swung at him, and Peter ducked him. At the same moment, Evangeline popped up through the roof and fired a jet of Mace into the guy’s face. Then she turned it on Mercer and Maced him.

  Both men screamed and went stumbling.

  Mercer tripped over one of the ATVs and fell down into the stream.

  And a burst of AR-15 fire tore into the sky. Then Batter was out of his Jeep.

  And the judge was jumping out from the other side.

  “You goddamned fools!” shouted Batter at the ATV boys. “You’ll get us sued.”

  Mercer staggered up from the gully. “But you told us to—”

  “I told you to see them off the property. That’s all.”

  “Well, shit,” said Mercer. “That’s—”

  “Mr. Fallon, we’re sorry about this,” said the judge. “Some of our members are more rambunctious than others. And—”

  “He punched me first,” said Mercer.

  “That true?” Batter looked at Fallon.

  Peter’s lip was bleeding and his eyes were burning from the Mace. Friendly fire.

  “Why don’t you drive?” the judge said to Evangeline, and then in a lower voice, “Get going now, because these boys are bad tempered.”

  Evangeline kept her wisecracks to herself, pushed Peter into the passenger side, swung around the ATV, and sped down the road. In the rearview, she could see the judge shouting at the others. But none of them were following. That was good.

  Once she reached the main road, she said, “Peter Fallon, you are a lot of trouble.”

  “When I get older, they’ll call me feisty.”

  “If you get older.” She drove for a mile or so and then said, “Remember what you told me the other day. This is business. Don’t let your passions get in the way.”

  “It wasn’t my passion. It was my temper. And it was stupid.”

  THEY DIDN’T DRIVE back to Boston.

  They thought about heading to Portland to see Martin Bloom again, but they decided that could wait till morning.

  Evangeline made for a guest house in Greenville, overlooking Moosehead Lake. The innkeepers—John and Mary Duggan, a retired New York stockbroker and his wife—greeted her like their daughter. She had written a piece about them in New England Travel Magazine and it had put them on the map.

  Peter had only one question: “Do you have an ice maker?”

  “For your drinks?” asked John.

  “For my fists.”

  Evangeline gave the Duggans a smile. “It’s a long story.”

  The ice helped Peter’s knuckles.

  So did dinner overlooking the lake. The first course—a freshwater soupe de poisson, whitefish from the lake simmered in a light broth. Then, braised short ribs and root vegetables for him. Local sausage sauteed with kale and tossed with pasta for her. Chardonnay to start, a ’96 Burgundy for the second course.

  They were able to relax a bit, their location unknown to anyone. Of course, the beauty of the sunset reminded them that time was running out.

  “Wednesday night,” said Evangeline. “Four days left.”

  “Three, if we’re aiming for the World Series. But what difference would it be if it was three weeks? Or three months?”

  “Harriet Holden wants a big splash when the committee begins its work.”

  “Big splash or small one,” he said, “it won’t make any difference.”

  “Then why drag us up to that armed camp?” she asked angrily. “Why make agreements with Charles Bishop, Judge Trask, and Harriet Holden, all for the same thing, so that all of them end up mad at you?”

  “Because they’re after their special interests. I’m after the truth.” He knew that sounded too windy, but it was the truth. “All of them want to use this document for their own purposes. And if the wrong side gets hold of it—”

  “Which side is that?” She gave him one of those looks

  “The side that doesn’t like what it says. I don’t want Sara Wyeth the PR queen deciding if the world should see it. I don’t want Harriet Holden’s assistant reading it and tearing it up. I don’t want the judge and his minions making the decision, either.”

  “The ATV gang, you mean? I don’t think he trusts them.”

  “He sent them after us,” said Peter.

  “What makes you think that?”

  “A smart guy like the judge doesn’t let you see anything he doesn’t want you to see. He wants us to know that those boys
are dangerous.”

  “Then why do you suppose he wants us to do his bidding?”

  “He’s run out of ideas. And frankly”—Peter flipped open the folder the judge had given them—”so had I.”

  “Had? You mean you found something in there?”

  “While you were in the shower.”

  “I was wondering why you didn’t try to get in with me.”

  “That judge did a lot of research into George Amory. Soldier, logger, town builder, letter writer.”

  The waitress took their dessert order. Evangeline had the crème brûlée. Peter had a cheese plate and—a large miracle in a small place—a by-the-glass pour of Chateau Montrose 2005, young but already deep in the layered complexities of a great Bordeaux.

  While they waited, Peter flipped open the folder that the judge had given them. “The longer I’ve done this work, the more convinced I am that we’ll never know the half of it. We can read about them, think about them, stand where they stood and try to feel them. But it’s hard enough figuring out a living human being, never mind people who’ve been dead for decades … centuries.”

  “We don’t have to figure them out, just what they did.”

  “This morning, we knew from the Bowdoin Web site that George Amory was going after something he called the national grail. By this afternoon, we knew that it was the lost draft. And now we know that he found something.”

  “What?”

  Peter flipped to the last page copied from the Edwards diary: “October 25, 1864: GA appeared at my door today, as I grieve. He has grown more rawboned. Sharper. More confident in his demeanor. He might have made a decent match for Cordelia after all, Unitarian or no. But we put aside might-have-beens. He said he had come to tell us that he had found his grail, in a Vermont village named for an English saint….”

  Evangeline looked out at the Maine forest surrounding the lake. “So … Vermont next? Where in Vermont?”

  SEVENTEEN

  October 1864

  THE ENDLESS PINE FORESTS of Maine could challenge a man. The stern mountains of New Hampshire ignored him. But Vermont wrapped a man in gentle pastures and verdant hillsides, and those Green Mountains beckoned him like a lover toward the bed of Champlain.

  George Amory had studied the Romantic poets. He had read of the English lakes that inspired Wordsworth and his friends. But what English lake could equal the beauty of Champlain, stretching serenely to the west while the Vermont Central steamed north?