by David Nees
“So whose problem is it?” Catherine asked.
“It’s their own. We can’t save the city if the people allow crooks like this Joe Stansky to run things. And Frank seems like just another crooked politician.”
“It may not be our fight, but it may come back to haunt us if we want to keep doing business in the city,” Catherine said.
“Some truth to that,” Kevin said.
“Yeah, and now Frank Mason’s asking for us to give them some seed.” Jason explained the conversation he had with Frank.
“Watch out for him,” Kevin said. “You may have called it right. He wants to be independent of the valley. It doesn’t sound like a good move for you.”
“It could be,” Jason said. “If we had a more trusting relationship, we could share more and more with them. We’ll still be the ones with the farming expertise, but it could enhance our ability to work together. Of course, that is with more trust than we have right now
“We should talk more about this later, with the others,” Catherine said. She didn’t want to keep discussing Frank or the town’s problems. She turned back to her fiancé and smiled at him. Her eyes pulled Kevin to her; they slipped into their own private world, one where she didn’t have to talk, words not being needed
Jason sighed and said goodnight. Without waiting for a reply, he turned and faded into the dark to join his wife.
Chapter 15
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C harlie walked down the hallway of the Bishops’ apartment building with a pair of bolt cutters in his hand. That morning he had awoken with the conviction that it was time to do some old-fashioned police work. Mary’s concern for Donna Bishop and her family had become his. Added to it was an overarching worry that this was evidence of something worse going on, something that could engulf and destroy not only him, but the whole town.
Charlie thought he was essentially a good man, but he knew that he often took the path of least resistance. He enjoyed the perks that his cozy relationship with Joe had brought him, but, when he was honest with himself, he had to admit that they were the result of his compromises throughout his career.
Joe had been easy to compromise with when he was just a local crime figure. There were always going to be crime figures. The trick was to limit how much harm they could do. Charlie had been able to live with that for decades, but now he sensed something worse, something that would take him beyond where he felt he could go.
When he reached the door of the apartment, he put the bolt cutters to the padlock and, with some effort, snapped the hasp, sending the lock clattering to the floor. Behind him another door opened. Charlie turned at the sound. He locked eyes with an elderly woman peeking out and she quickly pulled back, shutting the door. He heard the dead bolt slip back into place. With a shrug, he opened the door and stepped inside.
He found furniture broken apart and strewn about, with couch cushions cut open and chairs overturned. All the dresser drawers had been removed from their chests, their contents spilled on the floor. The destruction looked to Charlie’s practiced eye to be, not merely vandalism, but a search of the apartment with no regard for leaving its contents intact. In the kitchen, the cabinet doors were all open—two of them had been ripped off their hinges—with only a few dishes left in the cupboards. There were no clothes in the closets. And the mattresses had been removed from the bedrooms, and were not to be found anywhere else in the apartment.
After his first walk-through of the apartment, without touching anything, Charlie paused to take it all in, trying to get an overall feel of what had occurred, letting his senses absorb the scene. Then he began to slowly poke around in more detail. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but, remembering his early days as an investigator, he kept his mind open to help him recognize anything that might be important. He was looking for clues to what Jim and Donna were involved in, who they communicated with, anything that would lead him forward in his search for answers.
He found several papers and signed drawings that told him the son’s name. It was Danny. After ten minutes, he found a postcard-sized photograph of the family under a pile of broken items pulled from a dresser drawer.
Charlie picked it up and stared at it. It had been taken in a grassy field, probably a park. He recognized the man from the rewiring job at the police station. Jim Bishop had been energetic, helpful, and willing to do extra work if Charlie had needed it. The woman was very attractive, looking to be in her early thirties. She had blond hair, bright blue eyes and a smile that lit up her whole face. Their son was a happy-looking little kid with sandy colored hair that stuck out from under a New York Yankees baseball cap. Charlie smiled, wondering how that went down, here in North Carolina. He slipped the photograph into his shirt pocket.
He went back to searching through the debris, but turned up nothing else of value. However, he now had a picture of the family. He knew what they looked like and could try to find people who had seen the family, any of them, which would get him another step further. He left the apartment, picking up the broken lock on his way out.
Back at police headquarters, he looked up the one remaining police artist he knew, Philip Cole. From assignment records, made after the EMP attack, Charlie learned that Philip was now working on one of the waste projects. He sighed and headed back out on the streets to find him. In this post-attack age, even the police walked or rode bicycles unless there was a real emergency. Everyone was thinner, and, until such time as they caught a disease, healthier. Charlie couldn’t deny the fact that both he and his wife had lost weight and gotten into better shape. The highly processed foods had long since run out, and no one really got to indulge in overeating. Candy and ice cream were things of the past. The most one could hope for was biscuits with honey on them for a rare treat.
He found Cole a half hour later at the burn pits on the east side and told him he had a job for him. “I need you to draw some people from a photograph. I need drawings of the whole family and then ones of each family member. Multiple copies of each, so I can hand them out to my officers.”
“How many total?”
“Make me ten of each. And I want detail, Philip. As realistic as you can.”
“You’ll have to get permission from my supervisor. I’ll be a couple of days away from my work crew if I do that for you.”
“Show him to me and I’ll get you cleared. This is important.”
“What’s up?” Cole asked.
Charlie shook his head. “Not for you to know. You just do the drawings but don’t talk about them.”
Cole nodded. “I get it. Just like the old days. Well, it sure beats shoveling shit. It’ll be good to get back to drawing.”
“Do a good job and I’ll see if I can’t get you back to drawing and illustrating on a regular basis. Maybe for the town paper or making maps or something. Your talents are wasted handling a shovel out here.”
“I agree. But you think I get to make that point? I appreciate you helping to make it for me.”
Charlie talked to the supervisor and for the next two days Cole reported to police headquarters to do the drawings. When he was finished, Charlie distributed them to ten of his most trusted officers.
He had reason to believe that Joe Stansky had infiltrated the police department, even before the attack. Police were not immune to bribes and Charlie knew Stansky had successfully co-opted members of his force. Since the attack, Charlie had seen some of his officers meeting with Stansky’s men. In addition, Joe always seemed too well informed about police activity for Charlie’s comfort. He had thirty-eight officers left in the department, and he estimated that he could rely on the loyalty of only about twenty of them. He pretended that there were no distinctions, but he made sure to quietly acknowledge and support the officers loyal to him and let them know they were important to the department. It didn’t hurt that some extra rations and other resources found their way to these men and women. The others certainly seemed to be eating relatively well.
As far as he knew, they remained unaware of Charlie’s measures to take care of this small group.
When Cole finished his work on the afternoon of the second day, Charlie quietly passed the drawings out to the ten officers. Now he needed to wait. If the family was out there, he would hear about it sooner or later. And he wanted to be the only one who heard. He told the officers not to discuss this assignment with others and to keep the questions low-key. He wasn’t sure why, but his instinct was to conduct this inquiry undercover. Not even Frank would know. At least not until Charlie could figure out what was going on.
When the group got back to the valley, everyone pitched in to help unload the goods. The valley residents divided up their shares while the clansmen began to pack up their goods for their trek back home early the next morning. At the end of that long day, everyone gathered back in Anne and Jason’s yard to enjoy a last meal together—bowls of soup with venison on the side.
The next morning the Jessups and Earlys shouldered their packs and disappeared into the forest.
Jason stood on the porch and watched them depart. Anne came up and slipped her arm through his.
“What are you thinking? Want to go back into the woods?”
He turned to her. “No way!” he exclaimed. I want to stay here with you and be a boring country farmer and make lots of babies.”
Anne smiled. “I don’t know how many more babies I have in me, but I’m game to try for more as things settle down.”
Jason smiled at her and wrapped his arms around her. Then in a more serious tone he said, “Clayton wasn’t sure he wanted to do more trading with Hillsboro. I hope I can convince him to not start outlawing—stealing from cities. He said he might start doing that.”
“That wouldn’t be good. He could kill innocent people,” Anne said. “But he’s not like Big Jacks.”
“No he isn’t, but if law and order ever returns he would probably be put in that category. I’m not sure there will be any differentiating between outlaws. And I’d certainly like to have him on our side if we ever have to defend ourselves again.”
“Who would we have to defend against? There aren’t any large gangs like Big Jacks left, are there?”
Jason looked towards the woods and said quietly, “I’m worried about Hillsboro.”
Chapter 16
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T wo weeks after putting up the pictures of Donna and her son Les Hammond stepped into Charlie’s office, quietly laid a piece of paper on his desk, and left without a word.
Charlie read the handwritten report. Someone had seen Donna Bishop in one of the militia buildings, the one that was partly housing for the men and also doubled as a jail. She had been in the company of Leo Stupek.
Charlie pondered the report. No sign of the husband, but the wife hadn’t left town. Where was the kid? He’d be at the school. Charlie smacked his forehead. He knew he should have checked there already.
There were three bicycles left in the bike room, the old ten-speeds no one wanted to use. The good police bikes—multi-geared mountain bikes—were all checked out. Charlie grabbed the red Schwinn and headed over to the school. It was amazing how fast his childhood skills had gotten re-sharpened after the attack.
No one answered the door at the school for a long time, and then the man who answered refused to let him in without the manager’s approval.
When the manager came, trailing an assistant, he seemed reluctant to speak to Charlie.
After introducing himself as the Chief of Police, Charlie continued, “I’m looking for a lost boy.”
“We don’t release student information.”
This was more resistance than Charlie had expected. “I just need take a look around.”
“What’s the name?”
“Can’t tell you that. Police confidentiality.” If he gave the name it might get back to someone who shouldn’t know anything about what he was doing.
“I can’t just let you wander around. We have to protect the kids.”
Charlie gave him an understanding smile. “If I was a regular citizen, you’d be right, but since I’m the Police Chief it’s quite safe. And, by the way…” Still smiling, he looked the man directly in the eye. “You don’t want to interfere with police work.”
“What are you investigating?” the manager asked.
“That’s none of your business,” Charlie replied. “This is a minor case, but we don’t release information about any ongoing investigations.” The man didn’t seem to be a real principal, so Charlie figured this was all the explanation he needed or would get.
The manager looked somewhat doubtful but didn’t comment. “I’ll have my assistant escort you around,” he finally said.
Charlie thanked him and set out with the woman. “How old is the boy?” she asked.
“Not sure. Between five and seven.”
“We’ll start with the class of the five-year-olds.”
Within minutes Charlie found Danny Bishop in a long room full of children sitting on the floor. The boy didn’t have the Yankees cap, but Charlie recognized him at once. An instinct of caution kept him from calling out to the child. He turned to the woman and asked to see the next couple of rooms.
After the tour, he spoke to the manager again. “The kid isn’t here. It was a long shot but thanks for helping.” He didn’t mean it, but he had decided to stay friendly with the man.
On rare occasions Leo had brought Donna’s son over to his apartment. The visits were precious to Donna but she had to keep making up stories about where his father was. After taking the boy back to the orphanage he would return and emphasize that the more confidence he developed in Donna, the more she’d get to see her son.
Donna was beginning to understand what Leo wanted. He hadn’t violated her, but she feared that was to come. For now, in the weeks since he had released her from the basement, he had only given her instructions on how to behave, how to dress, how to wait on him. It seemed to Donna that she was being put through an obedience course. One that had an ending that she didn’t want to imagine.
Thankfully, Leo’s other duties kept him busy enough that she had time alone. But during those periods she was weighed down with worry and sadness about how their lives had come undone. What had Jim been involved in to warrant such harsh treatment? She sensed that she would never be allowed to go free. No one was looking for her. The best she could hope for was to protect her son. What would happen to her was secondary. She began to steel herself to that reality.
By now Joe had amassed a large cache of weapons through his systematic looting of National Guard armories in the region. It included M16 rifles, 9mm automatic pistols,.45s, and M110 sniper rifles with scopes. There were also M60s and two M2 machine guns. He had thousands of rounds of ammunition in multiple calibers. There M224 60mm mortar tubes with a hundred rockets to feed them. There were boxes of A67 grenades, M83 smoke grenades, and M47 riot control grenades. In addition there were Mk 153 rocket launchers with attendant rockets and Mk19 grenade launchers. The weapons made Joe’s organization one of the best-armed groups in the state
Leo was sitting in Joe’s office when he announced, “We’re going to take over Hickory soon. I want to get them under my control.”
Leo gave him a sharp look. “What do we gain from that? It could cost a lot of lives.”
Joe got up from his desk and went over to the liquor cabinet. He brought the bottle back and refilled Leo’s glass. “It gets us more power. And it means I don’t have to look over my shoulder and worry about them. We need a regional organization, a collection of cities and towns, and a combined militia. Places like Charlotte, or maybe even Washington, eventually, are going to come around some day and want to put us under their thumb. All this,” he waved his hand around the room, “could go away. Or at best we’d just be their lackeys. I’m not gonna be anyone’s lackey.” Joe sat down and leaned back in his chair.
Leo took a sip of his drink. “Gotta hand it to you. You thin
k big.”
“We don’t know what’s going to happen over the next couple of years. Hell, we may wind up with a bunch of regional powers. I plan to be one. And if a national power shows up, I want as much leverage as I can get. I want to be a force they have to reckon with.”
Leo relaxed and listened.
“Taking over Hickory, getting them under our control, will only help Hickory in the end. They can’t see the big picture like I can. They think they’re just going to maintain, waiting for the government to show up, whatever that means. What will they get? Maybe nothing but more rules. I can see what’s coming. That’s why I made it this far. I grabbed the supplies right away and everyone had to deal with me. Who thought of that? Not Frank or Charlie. I’ll do the same regionally and no one will push us around.” The big man lapsed into silence, his sharp eyes looking past Leo, looking, it seemed to Leo, at the future. “This is not about greed, Leo. That’s not the focus. Power is the key. And power means resources, lots of resources.” He leaned forward over his desk, smiling, “And all that power gives us control over the wealth.” Joe’s eyes grew bright with enthusiasm. “You see? First the power, then the control, then the spoils.”
Later that day, Frank stopped by Joe’s office to talk with him.
“These farmers, I think they’re going to be trouble,” Frank said. He was seated in a chair in front of Joe’s desk. “Especially that guy, Jason.”
Joe thought about that for a moment. “He’s already some kind of bullshit hero to people.” Joe had heard the stories the survivors of Big Jacks’s gang had brought with them.
“He could be a rallying point for insurrection.”