1635:The Dreeson Incident (assiti shards)

by Eric Flint

  Ron sat there, thinking about adults.

  That there had been something in the life of the calm, cheerful, competent, confident Mrs. Jenkins of Consular Affairs-the serene, unflappable Clara who had blown off every old cat in town by proclaiming that she was the luckiest and happiest woman in the world-something that led to her wanting, when things were over, to have her husband wrapped around her like a cocoon while she slept, warding off whatever things that went bump in her own personal night.

  That Mr. Jenkins did it for her.

  That growing up the way he had, on the commune, Ron probably didn't know much about husbands and wives. Dad might: he hadn't grown up on a commune. He and Magda got along great. But they kept things between themselves pretty private, and they were in Italy, anyway.

  Missy put her head down on his shoulder.

  Chapter 63

  Grantville

  Chandra stirred and looked at the alarm clock. Six-thirty. Somebody was going to have to get up and make breakfast for whoever was still in the house. That somebody was probably her. She showered and headed for the stairs. Mrs. Wiley was sitting with Dad and Clara, who was holding the baby. Presumably, at some time during the early hours, her new half-sister had decided that it was meal time. Mrs. Wiley made sshhh-ing gestures, so Chandra tiptoed down.

  She paused at the open double doorway that led into the living room. Ron and Missy were sound asleep in the recliner. In order to fit into the limited space, they had assumed a position usually associated with words like "consensual." Chandra grinned. Either Aunt Debbie's direst suspicions were fully justified or else Missy had a lot more confidence in Ron's powers of self control than she had ever had in Nathan's back before they were married.

  She knocked on the doorpost. Ron roused first, shook his hair back, and briefly looked down at Missy with an expression of such sharply intense delight that Chandra thought, Okay, girl. If he looks at you like that very often, we can forgive you for going totally bonkers over a kid who doesn't demonstrate many of the attributes of a Prince Charming clone on other counts.

  It only lasted a couple of seconds. Then he shook Missy and said in the ultra-casual tone of voice that he usually produced when in the presence of her relatives, "Hey, it's morning. Wake up, Dumpling. We're going to have to coordinate to spring ourselves out of this thing."

  Chandra stood there, wondering. He had not been using those mannerisms the day before. Not at all.

  A crash at the end of the hallway, followed by several more, indicated that Weshelle was awake. The noise would come from her tossing all the ample contents of the crib onto the floor. Weshelle seemed to have a hunch that Noah's flood might recur during any night. If so, she intended to take her worldly possessions with her as she floated away.

  Thinking that in another week, Weshelle would be able to get out of the crib as well as the playpen, Chandra started that way. The crashes stopped. Weshelle must have run out of ammunition. A loud thump, followed by a wail, indicated that her prediction as to the date of successful crib escape had been off. Lenore's voice, half asleep, offered comfort and consolation. She didn't sound panicked, so presumably Weshelle hadn't done herself any damage. The kid was one of those natural climbers.

  Kortney appeared at the top of the staircase, carrying her little lady and asking if anyone had seen Wes' briefcase. Then asking if Ron and Missy could get Inez downstairs. Chandra yelled first "no" and then "yes."

  The doorbell rang. Ron, still barefoot, got it. It was Aunt Debbie and Gertrude with Mikey, Tom, Sandra Lou, and Lena Sue. Mikey and Tom wanted to know why she hadn't come home to see them the night before. She hugged them and said that it was because they were having a new aunt and she had been busy.

  This led to a foray up the stairs, as soon as Missy and Ron finished carrying Mrs. Wiley down, to see Grandpa and Clara. And the new aunt. Wes, who had taken a perch on the toy chest, showed them the baby.

  That was an aunt? Mikey and Tom were sadly disillusioned. Aunts were, by definition, old enough to take kids to the park. Each of the three girls began to assume that defiant " I'm the baby" expression.

  Kortney called for Ron and Missy to bring Inez' wheelchair back upstairs so they could move Clara and the baby into the master bedroom.

  Chandra sighed. One of these days she would have to try to decide, in a methodical and analytical way, sensibly, practically, what to do about Nathan and their marriage. Some day when she had time. Probably about the same time the cows came home. She headed for the kitchen.

  The phones were still down, which was only a mild hindrance to circulation of the news of the Jenkins' blessed event. Starting at Cora's during breakfast, where it was announced by Veronica on her way to work, with a secondary source at the administration building once the offices opened and Don Francisco confirmed the outcome, and tertiary sources at the middle school and high school courtesy of Minnie and Denise, it simply flew.

  "Fifteen minutes" was designated as the winning bet. It had a flair that attracted bettors. The more academic conclusions reached by the health class at the high school were a distant third. They had been based on "fifteen minutes" as the starting point, anyway, which was part of the reason that Vic Saluzzo had been so annoyed by the project. This meant that there was no single large winner to take the pool. "Fifteen minutes" had been the most popular odds by far.

  An intransigent coalition of Grantville wives obtained the book that Irv Sonderman had been keeping at the Thuringen Gardens and forced the winners to pay up to the Red Cross.

  Outwardly, the happy grandmother accepted the donation graciously. It was a substantial amount of money and the organization had a lot of obligations.

  Inwardly, Eleanor Jenkins ground her teeth.

  Preston Richards looked at the rest of the people around the table. Politics. Politics was always a problem when it impinged on what should be straightforward police business. But here were Ed Piazza and Don Francisco Nasi, who said that Mike and Rebecca were waiting at the other end of the telegraph to put their two bits in. Arnold Bellamy. Not Wes Jenkins. Someone might need to express an opinion that it would be too hard for Wes to hear. Not to mention that he had a new baby at home.

  The issue, once again, was how to deal with the Bryant Holloway situation. More specifically, how to handle his death. The death, obviously, had to be announced. How much of the circumstances had to be announced seemed to be negotiable. The only outsiders who definitely knew about it, Nasi said, were Nathan and Chandra Prickett.

  In other words, the State of Thuringia-Franconia could attempt to minimize external interest in Holloway's role. Now that he was dead, to what extent would justice be served, Don Francisco asked, by making a federal case of it? Literally. Since the papers were safely in hand, his role could be perceived as entirely local. An unwitting dupe. A sympathizer who ended up holding the bag. That would be enough to explain why he headed out of town.

  Which was why the other side of the table was occupied by Veronica and Inez. Also Christin George. The widows. Ed Piazza insisted that they should be asked, at least, whether they would find it tolerable if one of the guilty parties, being dead, should be allowed to escape with an, if not unscathed, at least only minimally scathed reputation. If there was such a word as scathed.

  "Are you sure that Nathan and Chandra will keep their mouths shut about that chase down to Frankfurt?" Veronica Dreeson directed the question to Don Francisco.

  "There is very little certainty in this world," Don Francisco admitted.

  "The people who would be most harmed by puffing up Holloway's importance in it all are Lenore and Weshelle. I can't believe that Chandra would want to hurt them," Inez Wiley said. "And he really wasn't that important."

  "I agree," Don Francisco said. "All the information that I have is that Mrs. Prickett's relationship to her sister and niece is close and loving. There does not seem to be any immediate reason to assume that she would not prefer to protect them."

  "This doesn't cause problems from
the perspective of your department?" Ed Piazza asked.

  "No new data about the incident is likely to be gained by 'plastering the information all over the place,' as Mike Stearns said to me earlier," Don Francisco said. "It may in fact be preferable to let things rest and remain with the story that Holloway was shot by unknown hands while driving to Frankfurt to visit his brother-in-law. Without adding anything about why he was driving to Frankfurt. Possibly, someone else will become careless."

  ***

  Don Francisco still wished to avoid letting even Bellamy and Richards know that Nathan Prickett was one of his agents. The man's present usefulness in Frankfurt, watching for sales of arms to the enemy, was still high. Additionally, he had serious hopes that someone would become careless. The "Playpen Papers" that Ron Stone and Missy Jenkins had retrieved had been very illuminating. He had done some fuzzing of the context as to how he got them, managing to leave people with the impression that the playpen had been in the kitchen at Bryant Holloway's house, no longer used because Weshelle had learned to climb out of it and gradually coming to serve as a general catch-all.

  The story did have the merit of maintaining the connection between the papers and Holloway, at least, while avoiding uncomfortable questions about Frankfurt. Provenance was important and that origin tied them to Dumais. Not that a precise provenance was crucial. Many of the records were financial in nature. Payments to and by Dumais. Duplicate copies of his itemized expense accounts. The instructions and reports turned out to be encrypted. Time-consuming, but not a surprise. The financial records were not.

  Of course, as far as the politicians and Preston Richards were concerned-as far as everyone at the table except Don Francisco himself was concerned-Holloway had indeed been shot by unknown hands. One thing that Ron, Missy, and Chandra agreed on completely was that nothing in the world was to be gained by letting anyone else know that Denise and Minnie did it. None of them had told a single soul.

  Don Francisco knew because Nathan Prickett had duly reported the sequence of events. He had therefore ensured that Ron and Missy were not asked to attend this meeting. He wasn't certain what would happen if their former high school principal asked them point blank. They might tell him.

  Inez Wiley cleared her throat. "I don't think we need to say anything about why he was driving to Frankfurt. People will be ready to assume, I believe, that he was leaving town for personal reasons. Especially since his sister Lola is the one going over there to Frankfurt to make arrangements. Not Lenore."

  "What Inez means," Christin George said, "is that a lot of people already know that he flipped out, showed up at Consular Affairs where he tried to kill Clara, and then beat Lenore up real bad. The women down at the court were not happy about what he did. They kept their own counsel back in February and March, so Wes Jenkins wouldn't find out, but this last time, believe me, they did not keep their mouths shut. No reason, since Wes couldn't be kept out of the loop. So that's public knowledge now. The fact that he went postal would also account for your department poking around, Preston. Quite aside from any minor matters like being involved in setting up the assassinations."

  "Yes," Preston Richards said. "Yes they did, that is. The ladies down at the court made it very plain that they were upset. Beyond that, the question of why he took a truck can be fuzzed-at least if Steve Matheny is willing to cooperate, since he nabbed it off the fire department lot. As far as I know, nobody saw him loading Dumais' leavings."

  "This does leave open the possibility," Bellamy said, "that it may blow up in our faces one of these days if Nathan Prickett ever decides to become obnoxious and disagreeable about it. Remember what happened when they tried to keep Wes and Clara's Methodist ceremony secret. That backfired badly. And though I hate to say it, there are stories going around that Nathan and Chandra's marriage is in trouble."

  "It's a risk," Ed Piazza admitted. "I still think that it's probably the best that we can manage at the moment."

  Don Francisco kept his own counsel.

  "Well, I don't see," Veda Mae Haggerty said, "why everybody is going around feeling so sorry for Lenore Jenkins. If you ask me, Bryant was the one who deserved some sympathy. He went into the marriage and through it knowing that some other man had been there first. And Lenore wasn't a divorcee, as you know perfectly well."

  "Ma," her son said. "Ma, I really don't think you really ought to have said that, right here and right now."

  "Well, why not? You may not have any standards, marrying Laurie with that little bastard of hers, but that doesn't mean that I shouldn't. It's a disgrace, the way the Reverend Mary Ellen is going around saying 'poor Lenore.' If you ask me, she didn't get anything that wasn't coming to her."

  Veda Mae was in top form, her voice echoing through the dining room at the Willard Hotel. People at the five or six surrounding tables had turned their heads to listen.

  Gary Haggerty stood up. "I've had it," he said. "It's too late to salvage anything, but I'm going to go find Laurie and throw myself face down at her feet. I'm going to apologize for everything you put her through and everything she put up with. Ma, you are the most disgusting excuse for a human being I have ever come across."

  He started to walk out.

  "That doesn't change a thing!" Veda Mae screeched at the top of her lungs. "Miss Oh-So-Prissy Lenore Jenkins of the Oh-So-Prissy Jenkins family was not a virgin when she got married and she wouldn't even tell Bryant who it had been when he asked. And after that, everyone makes such a fuss about her."

  Gary turned around. "What about your friend Velma?" he asked.

  "Velma wasn't my friend."

  "Somehow," he said, "I'm not surprised."

  Veda Mae sniffed. Then she looked at Pam Hardesty who was also sitting at the table with her. "I expect you'll be walking out in a snit, too."

  "Actually, Mrs. Haggerty," Pam said, "I know my mother pretty well. It's not easy to be friends with her. I'm sure you tried your very best."

  She hoped Don Francisco would be proud of her.

  "Oh, God, Mary Ellen," Lenore said. "I'm so sorry. First Dad and Clara's marriage. Now this. I wouldn't be surprised if First Methodist would be ahead of the game if you and Simon just struck the Jenkins family off the membership rolls and had done with it."

  Out in the yard, a German girl Clara had found was chasing around after Weshelle.

  "Do you want to tell me about it?"

  Lenore shook her head. "Not really. I think Dad would have been okay with it, but I know that it would have been a problem for Mom. Not that she would have acted up, but she would have been miserable and very brave about trying not to show that she was miserable. So that's the way it was."

  "Why?"

  "Jay was from India. Sanjay was his full first name. We were both fairly traditional products of our own cultures. Even telling each other's parents about us would have been a major step."

  Lenore stopped.

  "I met him when I was taking classes at Fairmont State, of course."

  Mary Ellen nodded.

  "It's funny. Dad actually saw us together once. He was walking through the student union with a batch of other parks and recreation officials who were there for a conference. We were at a table with our study group. One of the girls said, 'Hey, Lenore, there's some old fart staring at you,' and when I looked over there, it was Dad. He just smiled and waved and went on."

  "Do you think he connected the two of you?"

  "There wasn't really anything to connect, back then. We were friends for a couple of years before anything else. On Friday nights, if I didn't have to work at the store, we'd eat take-out while he finished up at the department and then go to something. There was always something free to do on campus on Friday evening, if you looked hard enough. Once we went to a lecture on control and eradication of multiflora rose."

  She blinked.

  "Then it got to the point that we realized that there would be something else. Something more. One night, we were about to leave the lab. There were sirens
outside, police cars and a fire truck in the parking lot. We'd already switched the lights off. We were standing there, looking out the window, wondering what was going on. Jay put one of his hands on the back of my neck. I took his other hand and put it against my collar bone. Nothing flashy. But we knew.

  "I did all the sensible things. Went to the clinic, got the pill. A couple of months later, there was a terrible storm. I called home from his lab and left a message on the answering machine that I would stay overnight with a friend rather than try to drive from Fairmont to Grantville with a risk of flash flooding and mud slides. And I did stay with a friend."

  Lenore swallowed hard.

  "When I got home the next evening, Mom was very unhappy. She had called the dial-back number and got the telephone tree for the chemistry department, so she didn't really know where I was the night before if she had needed to reach me, she said. And, and… Dad told her that she should at least be glad that it wasn't some honky-tonk bar. He was teasing, but she didn't see that he was being the least bit funny."

  Mary Ellen wasn't quite sure what to say. Lena had never really been known for having a sense of humor.

  "Good God, Mary Ellen. We were both twenty-five! What do people expect?"

  "I think, maybe, it's that you were always such a perfect lady, Lenore." And, she thought to herself, also that every guy in Grantville knows perfectly well that it wasn't him, which adds some intrigue to the speculation.

  "When the Ring of Fire came, we'd gotten to the point that we were thinking and talking about that when he finished his MS at Fairmont, if his application to WVU for the Ph. D. program was successful, I might stop living at home and working and taking classes part time. That I might move to Morgantown, go to college there, and we would live together. And I wish that I had been in Fairmont with Jay that Sunday afternoon. He wanted me to come."

  Mary Ellen held Lenore while she finally cried. Not for Bryant, not for Weshelle, not for herself, not for her injuries, but for a young man left up-time, for whom she had never let herself grieve because no one else had even known he existed.