by Ray Rhamey
Stone turned to Jordan. “So, Adam, can I count on your support in the Senate?”
Jordan said, “My party would kill me.”
Stone winked. “And your voters will love you.”
Jordan grinned at that. “I’ll think on it. That’s all I can promise.” He nodded at Marion. “Pleasure to meet you.” He glanced at Stone. “Good luck with the mule.” She gave him a nod, and he left.
Stone gazed at her. “I’m sure you didn’t just drop by to learn about local politics.”
Local politics? If this idea clicked, it could become national. She sipped her coffee and then said, “I want to understand why we’re on opposite sides and maybe move toward a resolution.”
“I don’t see that we are on opposite sides.”
She set her mug on the table. She couldn’t talk about this without using her hands. “Let me be blunt. You are perverting the rule of law.”
“I see myself as supporting the rule of justice.”
“They’re the same.”
He shook his head. “Not at all. It was once the rule of law that you could enslave human beings.” He pointed at her. “It was once the rule of law that women couldn’t vote. Where’s the justice in that?”
Trapped. She raised her hands in surrender. “Yes, there are bad laws. But we change them.”
He clapped his hands. “Exactly! If the law isn’t working to bring justice, then we change the law so that it does. We use the law to seek justice, not to make rules.”
“But the Constitution—”
“—should be a living set of rules. Interpretation should stem from now, not the 1700s.”
Marion couldn’t disagree with that. Her quiver was empty. She stood. “I don’t like to lose an argument, so I’m going to retire to my corner to lick my wounds and give this some thought.”
He smiled. “You would make a great Ally.” He strode to his desk. “But before you go, I want to ask you about this.” He took something from a drawer and handed it to her.
It was a deer rifle bullet. On the brass case “Noah Stone” was printed. She looked up at Noah.
“It came in the mail. And I’ve seen it before.” He went to his computer and clicked on a bookmark. A page that declared itself to be the Mackinac Militia site came up. Noah clicked a link, and there was a photo of the bullet she held in her hand, or at least one identical to it.
She said, “The Mackinac Militia? Is that the one headed by—”
“Colonel Martha Hanson.” He clicked an “About Us” link and there was Martha Hanson staring out, grim-faced against a background of an American flag.
Noah turned to her. “Is this illegal? Can the law go after them?”
She weighed the bullet in her hand. “This was all that came? No threatening note?”
“That was it. I can’t even prove it came from her. Except for the fact that there it is, on her website.”
“I’ll have to check it out,” Marion said. “Can I keep this?”
“I sure don’t want it.” He turned to the computer screen. “That woman . . . I don’t like to think about why she sent that bullet.”
“Probably just a scare tactic.”
His usual lively face seemed to sink in upon itself, and his shoulders sagged. “Well, it’s working.” He clicked away from the site and turned to her. He put on a smile and said, “Hey, you coming to my speech tonight?”
Marion wanted to learn all she could about Stone. “I’ll be there.”
Joe Donovan stepped in. “Pardon the interruption, but . . .”
Marion said, “No, I’m finished. Thank you, Mr. Stone.” She turned to leave, but Donovan’s words stopped her.
“Dr. Moore called. Hank was released from the Keep. He’s on his way here.”
She turned back. “Is he . . . different?”
Noah said, “He has to be, or they wouldn’t have freed him. But who knows how different? Or in what way.”
Marion shook her head. As far as she could see, the guy was trouble.
• • •
It was afternoon when Hank pulled into the driveway to the Alliance campus. It paralleled a pasture where a couple of cows and a pony grazed. He saw a world far different from his earlier visits, not because it had changed, but because he had. He tapped his foot to the rhythm of Sheryl Crow’s “Every Day Is a Winding Road” on the radio. Yeah, it was long and winding. But now he wanted to travel it.
The pony ambled to a fresh clump of grass, and he thought of how Amy would have delighted in it. If only Marcie hadn’t been sick, there could have been so much joy in their lives. He was glad to find that the love he’d felt for her was still there. She could be at rest now, in his mind.
He drove on toward the campus. A sense of arrival after a long journey energized him. And added a prickle of anxiety. What if Noah Stone didn’t want him around? Well, he’d deliver his information and then go.
As he pulled into a parking space, he recognized a slender figure striding toward the Alliance legal department. Jewel Washington. He turned his head to avoid detection. Was he hiding from her? Yeah, he was. He’d done her wrong, and it wasn’t easy to own up. He owed her. He owed Benson Spencer, too.
He watched her move on. He had to smile—what a fighter. In his new world, he’d like to get to know her . . . but he just might have totally screwed that up by killing her boyfriend and kidnapping her.
A line of dark clouds boiled over the mountains to the west, dimming the day. A gust of wind played with her skirt, and she hurried to enter the building. It was time to get his ass in gear. He got out and headed for the administration building. Hank didn’t know if he had a place here, but he knew he didn’t have one in Chicago. He’d never thought much about “belonging,” but now he had a sense of missing out on something.
When he was a few yards from the door, Noah Stone burst out, trailed by Joe Donovan. Donovan was saying, “Noah, I need to talk to you about security for tonight’s event.”
Noah checked his watch. “You handle it. I’m late for an Alliance board meeting downtown.”
“I can’t brief you if you’re not here.”
“The ceremony’s not until tonight. Catch me later.”
Hank stopped and waited to be noticed. What would Noah do? How bad an idea was this?
Noah’s gaze settled on him, and then he smiled. Tension Hank hadn’t known was there slipped from his shoulders.
“Hank!” Noah strode to him and shook his hand. “Damn, I’m glad to see you!”
Feeling like a little kid whose favorite teacher had just given him a gold star, Hank said, “Yeah. Me, too.”
Donovan stuck out a hand for a shake, and Hank took it. Donovan said, “Good to see you.”
Noah’s gaze appraised Hank. “You okay?”
Hank smiled. “Actually, never better.”
“No hard feelings?”
“Quite the opposite.”
Noah clapped him on the arm. “Damn, that’s good to hear.” He started down the walk and pulled Hank with him; Donovan followed. “You’re coming back with us, right? Say yes.”
Hank hesitated. “Well . . . I need to have a talk with you.”
Noah’s eyes seemed to twinkle with energy. “Great. There’s a lot I want to talk with you about.”
“This is about trouble. A man named Mitch Parsons is coming after you.” At Noah’s blank expression, Hank said, “He says it’s just him, but he’s NRA.”
Noah shrugged. “So what’s new?” They reached a fork in the walk. He paused and probed Hank with his gaze, then laughed. “We’ve got a future ahead of us, Hank, I promise you that.”
Hank raised a hand. “Now, I told you when we met that I couldn’t make that promise of yours.”
“We’ll see.” He gripped Hank’s shoulder. “Man, it’s a great day!” He hustled away to the parking lot.
Donovan looked to Hank. “I can use your help tonight. Come on, I’ve got a meeting about it with the legal folks.”
In t
he Legal Building, Hank recognized some of the people gathered in the second-floor lounge—Sally Arnold was there, and Benson Spencer. He didn’t know a youngish man, or an older woman putting doughnuts and coffee on a table.
Donovan smiled as he announced, “Look who’s back with us!”
Benson sped to Hank and pumped his hand. “Hank, Hank, Hank!”
Hank grinned, and then he sobered. “I owe you, Benson.”
“What for?”
“You gave me the key.” In response to Benson’s puzzled expression, he clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Another time, over a beer or five.”
Benson beamed. “I’d like that.”
Sally said, “Good to see you.”
Hank was liking this. “Yeah.”
Donovan introduced Mike Potts and the secretary, Marge, then said, “Is Jewel going to help?”
In answer, Benson called, “Jewel! Time!”
Jewel emerged from an office with a frown on her face. “Sorry, I needed to get ready for—” Her eyes widened when she saw Hank.
He nodded.
She averted her gaze and took a chair.
Donovan poured a cup of coffee. “I’ve asked you folks here because we need people to help out at Noah’s speech tonight.”
Benson asked, “Help do what?”
“Just be extra eyes for us and let us know if anything looks suspicious.”
Hank said, “Something is up?”
Joe said, “A top NRA guy named Mitch Parsons just flew in from the East Coast and then paid a visit to Rick Hatch, and the only reason we can think of to visit him is to get a gun.” He gestured at Hank. “And Hank tells us he’s after Noah. On top of that, Marion Smith-Taylor is here, too.”
Sally cocked an eyebrow at Hank. “How’d you know about Parsons?”
Hank said, “He contacted me back in Chicago about working with him, but I went with Noah. The good thing is I’ll know him when I see him.” It was time to get off this topic. “What about the attorney general?”
“She’s a puzzle,” Joe said. “She came to see Noah, and he says he had a good conversation with her.” He frowned. “But she still worries me. I talked to friends in the Justice Department, and the word is she wants to come after the Alliance but doesn’t have legal grounds, and she’s pretty pissed about it.”
Mitch hadn’t wanted to take action himself before, so why was he here? He seemed like a decent guy, and definitely not the type to shoot somebody. Hank wished he could call Mitch right then, but it would have to wait.
Joe asked the group, “Are you familiar with these people?”
Jewel said, “I met her, but not this Parsons guy.” The others nodded.
Joe said, “Okay. Can you help us out?”
Benson said, “Sure,” and everyone but Jewel said yes. She glanced at Hank, then said, “I . . . I don’t know if I can get a sitter.”
Donovan said, “Come if you can, but with Hank here I think we have enough. We’ll meet at seven inside Daggett Hall at SOU to assign positions. Many thanks.”
Benson clapped his hands. “Back to it, people—we have that robbery to deal with.”
Jewel hurried to her office. Hank followed and stood in her doorway. He said, his voice soft and low, “I want to say that I understand—no, more than that, I feel deeply how wrong what I did to you and Earl was. And I’m sorry.”
She stared up at him. Her face could have been carved from mahogany.
He felt disappointment, then chided himself. What did he expect, a big hug?
She looked down at the papers in front of her.
He left. Downstairs, he called Mitch’s cell phone number. Mitch answered on the first ring. Hank said, “Hey, Mitch. I’m out and free.”
“That’s great! Too bad you’re pretty much done with Noah Stone.”
“Actually, no. I’m back in Ashland and helping him out.”
Mitch’s voice tightened, got a little higher in pitch. “Ashland? Really.”
“Yeah. Same as you, I hear.”
Silence. Then, “After I lost you, I wanted to see the enemy in person, you know, maybe get a better handle on what to do.”
So he wasn’t going to say anything about his visit to Rick Hatch. Had he gone there for a gun? “Listen, I’m going to be at a speech Stone is giving tonight, and—”
“Yeah, the dedication at the university. Hey, I’ll just see you there.”
Well, Mitch didn’t seem to be hiding anything.
The Storm Hits
Jewel said to Chloe, “Forks go on the left, honey.” Chloe placed a fork next to a plate and Jewel smiled. “The other left, sweetie.”
Setting two more plates around the table, a twinge of sadness stirred when she passed the chair that had been Earl’s regular spot. She called out to the kitchen. “It was creepy, Franklin, Soldado walking around free as a bird, nobody paying him no never-mind.”
“I thought you wanted him out of the Keep.”
“I just thought he got screwed. The guy’s a fire lookin’ for a place to start.” Why the hell did he have to come back to her town?
She went to the window and gazed out. Rain clouds had gathered, but the neighborhood was peaceful. “I sure don’t want him around here. Not after . . . you know. I mean, how would you feel if he got into your cab?”
Franklin looked up from pouring pancake batter into an electric skillet. They were having Chloe’s favorite supper. “Weird. But he’s done the therapy, and he’s different now.”
She returned to setting the table. “So they say. But I’m not!”
“You got to let that go.”
“I can’t.” She set the last spoon in place and told Chloe, “Get yourself some milk, honey.”
Chloe skipped into the kitchen and climbed onto a step stool to get a glass from a cabinet; Jewel followed and leaned in the doorway. “I can’t feel for people the way the Alliance says.”
Franklin flipped pancakes and then glanced at Jewel. “Maybe you could use a little therapy.”
She gave him a glare. “There isn’t anything wrong with me. But I don’t know if I can work there if he’s gonna be around. Donovan asked us for help at the speech tonight, but I felt weird about Soldado bein’ part of it.”
“Help with what?”
“Donovan seems to think Noah might be . . . there could be trouble.”
Franklin turned and grinned at her. “So you a secret agent now?”
She smiled. “My girl-of-action days are over. They just wanted people to watch out.”
“Just as well you didn’t want to go. I got an audition that’ll take ’til about eight.”
Thunder rumbled through the house. She moved to the dining room window and watched sprinkles dot the glass. She pictured Hank Soldado. That afternoon he’d been . . . looser. “Soldado did seem different today. He even tried to apologize. But when I look at him, all I see is grief.”
A flash of lightning flared. Thunder cracked. Raindrops spattered the window and then came hard.
• • •
Hank was surprised to see so many come out in a heavy rain to attend the dedication of Daggett Hall on the Southern Oregon University campus. There was even a camera crew from a Medford television station. Noah Stone had a lot of pull in this town. At ten minutes to eight, the auditorium swarmed with rain-soaked students and citizens. The crowd was happy, swirling, laughing, handshaking, smiling. Its babble roared up to the balcony where Donovan and Hank observed.
Hank had seen familiar faces—Judge Crabtree stopped by and welcomed him back, though she did scold him about what he’d done in her courtroom. But he’d spotted no one with a hint of the telltale tension that meant an attack. He hoped the therapy hadn’t cost him his edge.
He touched the holster clipped to his belt, and then took out the stopper Donovan had given him. It hadn’t taken but a few minutes to learn to use it. He still had doubts about how useful it could be, though.
He stood beside Donovan in the upper tier; below the
m a broad aisle ran across the auditorium. From it, two aisles ran down to the stage, splitting the audience into three parts. Donovan had somebody from Legal at the two exit doors on either side of the stage. Sally Arnold, slim and attractive in a rare dress—a powder blue that went well with her eyes—swept her gaze back and forth from her position on the near side of the stage.
Donovan said, “Everybody’s in place except Jewel. I guess she couldn’t make it.”
Hank pointed toward a back corner of the hall on the far side from where they stood. “Our esteemed attorney general.” Marion stood near an entrance, scanning the crowd. He hoped she was going to leave Noah alone.
Then Mitch Parsons entered on the near side. He scanned the hall, and Hank gave him a little wave when they made eye contact. Hank said to Donovan, “There’s Parsons. I’ll go see if I can find out what he’s up to.”
• • •
Marion shivered and crossed her arms over her chest. It wasn’t cold, it was the doubt that had been growing in her since her conversation with Noah Stone. Were the rules of law and justice not the same?
When she was a law student, she and her classmates had ridiculed professors whose minds had ossified into rigid views of the law and who would have no truck with the changes modern society demanded. Had her reflexive reverence for the rule of law led her to become as hardened as those professors? Noah Stone was right: slavery had once been the law, but it was hardly justice.
She spotted Hank Soldado moving toward the entrance on the other side of the auditorium. How could he be out of prison so soon? She’d fought the Oregon system that had put him there, but even though it wasn’t the same rule of law she advocated, she’d come to admit that it had been justice.
Advocated. She had to give Noah Stone the win on that issue, too. His advocacy approach had gotten justice for Hank Soldado far better than the adversarial system she loved and hated could have.
What would her father say? As a defense attorney, he had relied on the protections of the Fifth Amendment for his clients. Yet he had been an honorable man, and she knew that the times his defense had freed a client who he knew was guilty had brought him sleepless nights.