by Eric Flint
For various reasons of combined nostalgia and Schadenfreude, Grantville had continued to use April fifteenth as a deadline for all sorts of measures that its citizenry was likely to dislike.
In any case, Christin George was in line. Followed by Denise, Minnie, Ron, and Missy.
The line was going nowhere.
That was exactly what Christin had predicted when she had first insisted that all of them show up early. It was a reminder of the importance of keeping your paperwork in order. And of the fact that in order to do so, a person had to outwit a lot of bureaucratic inertia and incompetence.
The deadline had come and the deadline had gone. This was their fourth appearance at the licensing window over the past two weeks.
At the moment Christin was predicting that the person behind the counter, if that person ever took notice of their presence, would insist that they needed some other item which had unfortunately been omitted from the public notice published in the newspapers, that nobody had told them about on their prior appearances, and with which they would have to return another day. Which would mean that they would all have to pay a fine for being tardy and would not legally be allowed to ride for several days until they got the mess straightened out, at which time some incompetent clerk would not realize that it had been straightened out and send them a bill for a another fine, which would require another visit to the Department of Internal Affairs.
The person behind the counter, who this morning happened to be Arnold Bellamy's daughter Amy, waved from behind the barrier, cheerfully calling out to Missy that she would get to them in no time.
That was when someone down the hall started screaming. The five of them turned and ran, followed by Amy, who leapfrogged over the counter.
Consular Affairs. Christin had been last when they left the queue, but somehow she was first through the door. She took a running leap, landed with her arms around the man's neck like a spitting cat, and began to kick the backs of his knees and jam her knees into his kidneys while letting her full, if not very impressive, weight press against his windpipe.
Ron paused a moment in surprised admiration. When it came to plain old dirty fighting, of no particular style, Denise's mother was no slouch at all. She could probably open up a martial arts studio of sorts. Then he reached over her head, grabbed the man by his hair, and yanked backwards.
Missy thought of trying a tackle, but didn't. She had a feeling that she was too likely to get hit by Christin's flailing feet.
The man had a knife. Amy reached up and handed Denise a vase of dried flowers that was on top of the filing cabinet. Denise brought it down hard on that hand. The man yowled, turned, and ran out into the corridor, jerking away from Ron and bowling over the security guard who was running up the stairs.
Christin dropped off his back. "Damn," she said. "That guy is strong." She ran after him, Ron following.
Missy thought vaguely that she probably ought to chase him too. Instead, she dropped onto her knees. "Clara, are you all right?"
Clara Bachmeierin crawled out from under the desk. "Yes. I would not let him hurt my baby. I drop under the desk onto my hands and knees and scream and scream and scream."
"The scream was pretty impressive."
Christin came back saying, "He got away. But not for long or very far, I think. The security guard is calling the cops. What became of the knife?"
"Over here, Mom," Denise said. "That was Bryant Holloway. What is going on?"
Missy's automatic reaction to any question was to try to provide an answer. This was not the best orientation for a covert operative, as Don Francisco had concluded to his sorrow. In this instance, preoccupied with getting Clara back on her feet and making sure that she was in fact uninjured, she covered the essentials in four or five pungent, cogent sentences.
The only part that really interested Denise was Holloway's involvement in setting up the distraction at the hospital that drew the police away from the synagogue on March fourth.
Ron came back, following Christin. "Missy," he said. "That's, ah, privileged data."
"It's just us. And Clara knows anyway."
"There's going to be practically dozens of people here any minute. Uh…"
"I," Christin said, "am going to get back in line to get the drivers' licenses. Amy will go back and issue them. Right now. Denise and Minnie will come with me. And Amy will give me yours and Missy's as well as ours. It's an ill wind that blows nobody good. We weren't here, anyway."
"Ah," Amy started to protest. Then she decided it would be better to say, "Yes, ma'am."
So by the time the police arrived, those four were back at the other end of the corridor, inside another door. With Minnie writing up detailed notes concerning an event at which she had not been present, officially speaking.
And Clara was asking, "What about Lenore? If he comed-came-to hurt me, what about Lenore?"
"There isn't any answer," Missy said.
"Maybe he didn't come here," Ron said. "The garage door is open."
"That doesn't make any difference. Bryant and Lenore don't have a car. Not even bicycles. She walks everywhere and he uses fire department vehicles when they send him out of town."
"Now what?"
"I think we ought to break in," Missy said.
"Why?"
"Because Lenore ought to be at work and Weshelle ought to be at Aunt Debbie's since Chandra went to Frankfurt this week. I don't know what happened, but Weshelle is here. I can hear her crying. And crying. And crying. If she was sick and Lenore stayed home with her today, if Lenore was here, if she was okay at least, she wouldn't let that happen."
Ron came up the walk. "Do we actually have to force our way in, or does she hide a key somewhere?"
"She does, now that you remind me. Under the kindling pile. There's a fake rock. It's hollow."
"He didn't kick me," Lenore said. "He's strong. If he had kicked me, I would probably be dead."
"Then," Ron asked, "what are these marks?"
"He hit me with my boots. My winter boots. That's what he used the last time, too. I wish I hadn't put them back on, that night when Clara and Trent Dorrman and Brother Green were here. I wish I hadn't gone into the bedroom still wearing them. I wish that I had left those heavy winter boots right there in the hall, by the door. I wish that they hadn't been so handy."
"What night?" Missy said, as she came in carrying Weshelle. "I got her changed, gave her a sippy cup of milk and now she's chewing on toast. So she's happier."
"Back in February."
"Lenore, what happened in February? I know that Bryant was recruiting for Dumais, and Clara said, when she sent us over here just now, that she and Lola and the other women at the court had gotten a protective order for you, but what else is going on here?"
"I'm too ashamed. I'm too ashamed to tell anybody else. Too many people know already what he did."
"This time, in another half hour, you would have been too dead to tell anybody else." Ron thought it was only reasonable to point this out. "It might have gone faster if he had kicked you, but he was definitely making progress when we turned up."
"I didn't do anything," Lenore moaned. "I didn't do anything to make him so mad."
Missy looked at Ron. "What next? We can't leave Lenore alone with Weshelle and we can't stay here. At least, both of us can't. One of us has to go back and tell Chief Richards and Don Francisco and all those that Bryant was here and what he did and that he ran."
"I'll go, but they'll need you too, if we're going to make sense out of this. Is there anyone else you can call to help?"
Missy stood there, holding Weshelle and thinking. Uncle Wes was at a meeting somewhere and Clara was busy with the police at Consular Affairs and anyway, if Uncle Wes saw Lenore right now… That was not a good thing to think about.
"I'm going to call the Reverend Mary Ellen. I don't ever go to church any more, but Lenore does. That's the best idea, I think. She'll come. And the hospital. Some medical type has to take a look at L
enore. We'll need an ambulance anyway, to move her. She sure can't go anywhere by herself. You go now. After other people get here, I'll come after you. Mary Ellen can take care of things here and send the police to catch up with us later to tell them what was going on."
"No," Lenore said. "I'm not going to cry for a love gone wrong, Mary Ellen. There wasn't any love between Bryant and me, from start to finish. Neither of us ever thought so."
She looked up. "And I'm not going to cry for anything else, either. I didn't try to fool Bryant. I am angry, though. I've thought about it, and what I'm feeling is angry. Miserable, degraded, but angry, too. When we married, I was willing to give him an honorable effort to make the best of things in a world that isn't perfect. He wasn't willing to give that much back."
Mary Ellen looked down. None of them had tried to lift Lenore off the floor. All of them thought that had better wait for the EMTs.
"I thought he was, at first. If I hadn't thought so, I wouldn't have agreed to marry him. He wasn't, but I'm not going to cry about that. I'm not going to cry. Not ever."
"Lenore," Mary Ellen asked. "If the EMTs say that you don't have to go to the hospital, is there anyone that I can get to come over and stay with you after I leave? Someone you are willing to have? The kind of friend who would come and ask no questions?"
Lenore smiled for the first time since Bryant had come back to the house that morning. "The only person I can think of I would want is Caroline Jones. Dorrman. Which isn't going to work, considering what you just told me."
Mary Ellen smiled too. About nine o'clock in the morning, Simon's niece Caroline had phoned the parsonage to say that the baby was on its way.
Chapter 58
Grantville
Wes came back from his meeting over at the legislative chambers. There were police all over the place around the administration building. As soon as he saw the expression on the security guard's face, he knew that something was wrong. Specifically wrong, for him. Not generally wrong, politically.
"Ah, Sir. I am sorry. Truly I am. I had no way of knowing that I should not admit him. I hadn't been notified. He wasn't on my list. And he is a member of your family."
"Who is 'he'? And what has 'he,' whoever he is, done?"
"Mr. Bryant Holloway, Sir. He came into the building. Quiet enough, when he came in. He went up to your office. To Consular Affairs. Where he tried to knife your wife."
At the expression on Mr. Jenkins face, the guard turned pale. "Ah, she's perfectly fine, Sir. Ms. Bachmeierin, that is. She's upstairs, talking to the police. She yelled, so other people came."
The guard had heard any number of people say, from time to time, that Mr. Jenkins had a temper. He'd never seen any sign of it before.
The policeman talking to Clara was Preston Richards, who had sent Ron and Missy into another room to be interviewed. He also carried out the unpleasant task of letting Wes know that Bryant had gotten to Lenore and beaten her very seriously.
The guard looked up. The way Mr. Jenkins' face had looked on the way up did not even start to compare with Mr. Jenkins' face on the way out.
Ms. Bachmeierin came running after him. Running down those steep old-fashioned stairs, as close to her time as she was. Running, her short legs trying to catch up with her tall husband.
"Look, Ed," Preston Richards said. "If Wes lays hands on Bryant Holloway, the man's life expectancy is going to be very short. And while I don't give a damn about Holloway, we'd still have to arrest Wes for murder. Second degree, anyway."
"Then," Arnold Bellamy answered, "we must find the best way to save Wes from himself."
Ed Piazza didn't answer right away. He was thinking.
Arnold was right, of course.
Arnold could be an uptight pain in the ass a lot of the time, but he was frequently right.
Michael Dukakis had probably been right too, back up-time, when he answered that question about his wife Kitty. Right in an abstract sort of way.
Natalie Bellamy hadn't been among the women standing on the steps of the synagogue the day of the assassination. No one had shot at her. Ed wondered vaguely how Arnold would have reacted if she had been there. Or if someone had tried to knife her this morning. Or if someone beat up his daughter Amy. Amy would be how old now? Nineteen already? She'd been a freshman in high school the year of the Ring of Fire.
This coming spring, a class would graduate that had never attended the high school while Ed had been principal. A whole new school generation, he thought, formed during their freshman year by Len Trout but mostly under Victor Saluzzo's leadership.
"I'm sure you're right, Arnold," Ed said. "Do you have any suggestions?"
"Not really. I was hoping that Preston might."
Ed's thoughts kept wandering. Lots of people sort of wondered about Arnold and Natalie. It was lucky that Amy hadn't been involved in this at all. She worked right here in the building. Who could tell how Arnold would have reacted?
"Ah," Arnold was saying. "Preston, while I have your attention, I think I'd better let you know that several other people were involved in pulling Bryant Holloway out of Consular Affairs than your men found when they arrived on the scene. Amy says…"
"That must have been a sight," was Preston Richards' comment when Arnold had finished his summary. "I guess I had better talk to Minnie and Denise. Minnie has a really amazing memory for things she observes."
Arnold rearranged the papers in front of him into three neat piles. "Amy thought you ought to know. No matter what Christin George's opinion was."
Ed blinked. Amy had been involved in the fight. And Arnold's reaction was-somewhere between perfectly calm and mildly concerned?
Arnold was continuing. "At least she phoned me once she got rid of Christin. She's a lot like Natalie, you know. Amy, that is. Came equipped with a mind of her own from the day she was born. All the paternal guidance I have been able to muster over the past two decades has not sufficed to persuade her that 'Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead!' is not necessarily the most appropriate response in every single circumstance that may arise."
He rearranged the three piles of paper. "I really do wish that she were a little more cautious. I thought that working in Internal Affairs would offer comparatively little risk, since she has no desire to teach. Compared, say, to working in Economic Resources or going to Franconia." He frowned. "Minimal risk is difficult to achieve these days, though. Natalie was teaching the day of the Croat raid, and Amy was at school. I had just transferred to the Department of International Affairs, so I was downtown. I was very concerned about their safety. With all the other things that had to be done, and all the confusion, it was almost three hours before I was able to confirm that they had come to no harm."
Clara insisted that Lenore and Weshelle must move in with them, at least temporarily, rather than having Lenore try to find a health aide and stay by herself here, where it happened.
Mary Ellen backed Clara up on this. "The EMTs are still here; the ambulance can move you. Wes and Clara can take Weshelle, and I'll send Simon and Sebastian over to bring your things and hers. They can use a dolly from the church."
"There's a crib there already," Wes said. "And a playpen. On the sun porch. Just for grandchildren."
Lenore was shaking her head.
"You should have come the first time," Clara said. "Like I told you to. Or the last time, like I told you to again."
Wes' head came up. First time? Last time?
He learned about February.
"Why in the name of God didn't you tell me then?"
"Because you would have killed the man. Just as right now you are on the verge of killing the man if you lay hands on him. And I did not want to see you hanged before you saw our baby. Well, not to see you hanged at all."
"She's my daughter. You had no business taking that on yourself."
Clara stuck her chin out. "I exercised my best judgment."
Then he learned about March. Faye, Lola, Andrea, Chandra, the protective order th
at had been in place since Bryant came back. With Clara involved again.
"Dad," Lenore said. "Dad. It wasn't…"
Her attempt to intervene didn't do any good.
Chandra? Both Clara and Chandra had known, but hadn't told him?
Wes and Clara were yelling at each other when the ambulance arrived. Still yelling when Mary Ellen left in it, with Lenore, carrying Weshelle herself.
Still yelling when they got home after locking up at Bryant's house.
Just yelling, though.
Mary Ellen sighed and left them to it, wondering how long it had been since anyone in Wes' family had stood up to him. Probably, if the stories she had heard were true, back when his mother tried to talk him out of marrying Lena. Which hadn't worked.
Wes would never have thought of himself as a domestic dictator. And, to give him credit, she thought, if that rubric applied in any way, he had certainly been the most benevolent dictator ever born in the human race. His efforts to elicit a point of view from Lena had been practically superhuman. He had nobly refrained from playing the heavy father to Lenore and Chandra, even when he clearly hadn't been pleased with the choices they made.
But still. He was pretty short on experience when it came to give and take on the home front. Lenore and Chandra hadn't had to fight for their choices. Wes had stood back and deliberately let them make them, which was a different kettle of fish.
Faye looked up from the phone. "That was Mary Ellen Jones," she said.
"Is it true?" Linda Beth asked. "What we heard that Bryant did to Lenore this time?"
Faye nodded. "Bad enough that she's going to have to be off work for several days."
"What do you think? Like your friend Bernadette Adducci says, Andrea, it's really hard to help someone who won't help herself."
"Personally," Faye said. "I think that Lola and Clara were right. She should have gotten out. Not that a protective order would have prevented him from hunting her down at Wes' house. But it sure would have made it less convenient for him to get to her if she had been living somewhere else, with other people around."