Breeding Ground (25 page)

Alan didn't say anything else.

Jo sat silently, till she couldn't stand it any longer and told him she was sorry.

“Thanks. Me too.” He stacked his salad plate on top of his dinner plate and slid his leg off the chair. “She did the right thing. I wouldn't have respected her as much if she hadn't. But that didn't keep me from wishing things were different. And I haven't met another woman since I thought I could marry.”

“I see.” It'd cut and stung, and she'd had to work at controlling her face. And that took Jo by surprise. “Well. I'm glad you told me.”

“Why?” He said it neutrally, but fast and direct.

“It makes me feel like I know you better. I'm sure it must've been hard.”

“Going through it? Or telling you?”

“Both.”

Alan picked up her plates and stacked them on his. “What about Nate?”

“Tom told you about him?”

“No. He referred to him in the letter he left you, that I read in Middleburg.”

Jo nodded and said, “I forgot.” Then folded her napkin and laid it on her placemat. “I was engaged to Nate when I was in architecture school. He was a Political Science Ph.D. candidate who liked undergraduates. I apparently was his favorite among many, which was not my idea of a marriage.”

“No.”

“I was lucky to find out when I did. My horse had cancer then, Jed, the one I really loved. Then Mom got brain cancer, and I got out of Ann Arbor.”

An uncomfortable silence settled in again – along with a sad, sick feeling somewhere in Jo's chest. “I better get home. Thanks for dinner. I won't stay and do the dishes, so I can help Toss get to bed.”

“Thanks for doing the work at the lab. I liked your suggestions.”

“There'll be others. Probably different. I'll know more as I work on it.”

“Jo—”

“Is Jo here?” It was Jack, coming in the back door, carrying work boots that were stained bright green from a day spent cutting grass.

Jo said, “Hey, Jack. How you doing?”

“Good. Thanks again for letting me borrow your truck. Anytime you want it back, I'll find something used that—”

“Keep it till Toss needs his. Good night, Alan.”

She was gone, climbing toward Toss's truck under the trees on the hill.

“Did I interrupt something?” Jack was taking off his shirt, walking toward the circular stairs.

“Just business. She's working on the lab.”

“I didn't know that was today.”

“When you've gotten cleaned up, I've got some news for you.”

Jack spun around and stared at Alan.

“Nothing significant. Don't get your hopes up. We'll talk when you come down.

Jack took his first bite of steak on a stool at the kitchen island two feet in front of Alan, who was washing dishes and setting them to dry in a wooden rack.

“So?” Jack chewed without seeming to notice, all his attention on Alan.

“I talked to a friend of mine who's in Berlin now—”

“In the army?”

“No. Though he was during the war. He was able to trace the gangster from Nantes in U.S. Army files, because Bouchard was arrested for his black market dealing, pretty much the way you expected. Before I say anything else, I'd like to tell you what I've learned about Esvres-sur-Indre. The town where you said he met with the F.T.P. guy you suspect.”

“Okay. However you want to approach it.”

“As you know, it was a tiny village where everyone knew everyone else. Like everywhere in France, a large percentage of the population was sent to work camps in Germany if they weren't working on farms that supplied food to the Nazis. The Catholic priest in the village at that time opposed the Germans and helped the Resistance. But a collaborator turned him in, and he was caught by the Germans and sent to a concentration camp where he died.

“But today, in 1962, when someone my contact knows mentioned the priest in the village, no one he talked to would acknowledge his existence. They all claimed there'd never been such an incident. No one had collaborated in the entire village. And the past should be left in the past. It would do nothing but harm to dredge it up now.”

“So?”

“I think that illustrates how significant the cover-up is in France, and how hard finding out what happened to you would be if you went back.”

Jack didn't react directly. He ate another bite of steak, then asked about Henri Reynard.

“There's nothing in the U.S. Army archives that has to do with the gangster's alibi for Henri Reynard. In fact, Reynard isn't mentioned anywhere. And the raid in Tours isn't referred to. There's no reference of any kind that tells you what you want to know. Not that my contacts could find.”

“Damn.” Jack looked down at his plate, disappointment sweeping away the hope he'd had in his eyes, while anger tightened around his mouth till it turned stubborn and petulant.

Alan was watching him with cold analytical eyes, sympathy swallowed up then. Feeling hot and itchy and irritated with himself – and the look on Jo's face too, when she'd walked out the door. “You know what I think?”

“No. How could I? But I guess you've earned the right to tell me.”

“I know who threw the grenade that tore me up. I watched him do it. He was trying to kill a woman he thought was a traitor, and I knew wasn't. I know what he did after the war and that he was as ruthless then as he was when I knew him.” Alan was pacing, back door to circular stairs, then turning to cross again.

“I hated him, believe me. Because it wasn't combat when he threw that grenade, but revenge, based on rumor, and partisan hatred too, and his own political ambition. He didn't want that particular woman opposing him in local elections after the war. But she did fight him and won, as it turned out. Because she lived.”

“So how did you get hurt?”

“I was in the way.”

“You put yourself in the way?”

“Let me ask you a question.”

“Okay.”

“Since the war, have you seen any of the people you knew in the O.S.S. except for Tom?”

“No.”

“Have you had any dealings with anyone in France who thought you were a traitor?”

“No.”

“Does anyone you've met since the war in this country know what you were accused of?”

“No.”

“Then you live every day without any direct effects from it?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then why not try to get over it?”

“Why! How can you—”

“If what happened in France doesn't affect your life, except in
your
reactions to the memory of it, why do you let it control how you live now? You know you weren't a traitor. Why isn't that enough?” Alan stopped in front of the sink and stared hard at Jack who was standing by then, glaring at him with sweat standing out on his forehead.

“If I'd gone back to France and wreaked vengeance on the guy that nearly killed me, what would that have accomplished? I had to make that choice too, one more or less like yours.”

“But—”

“Jack, you've been given incredible gifts. You got a law degree as a kid. You learn languages overnight. You've written poetry that's well respected. I learned about that from Tom. You can start over and have whatever life you want. But you've got to get over the hate and humiliation that's held you hostage till now.”

Jack had stepped closer, his face red, his eyes hot, fists set on the counter. “How can you stand there—”

“You've seen people who hold grudges. It's like they've taken cyanide and expect the other guy to die.”

“Shut up!” Jack grabbed his keys off the counter and slammed the back door behind him.

Alan heard Jack's truck start up.

Then he stood still for a minute and listened, before he turned the lights off.

After his eyes had adjusted to the dark, he walked outside, and climbed up to the drive, and started down toward the road.

Excerpt From Jo Grant's Journal:

…I had to meet a landscape designer at the country club at eight this morning about the gardens at White Hall, and he told me to wait for him in the maintenance yard separated from the employees' lot by a high, thick hedge.

It was hot, and I had my windows down, and I heard a man and woman talking in a car on the other side. They both sounded vaguely familiar, and I started eavesdropping the way I usually do, and when I realized it was Richard Franklin and his wife, Lily, I still second-guessed myself, because what were the odds of that?

Then I heard her say, “Blue Grass Horse Vans is all they care about. You don't matter in the least.”

Richard said, “That's not true. They want me to run the company.”

Lily snorted and then laughed, as though he were a half-witted child. “I didn't move to this hillbilly town to waste my life working as an event manager in a mediocre country club. I have taste and experience, and I don't intend to stagnate here. If you aren't given an opportunity soon to expand your horizons and travel for the firm, and meet the really important international competitors, I fail to understand why you would want to stay either.”

“Come on, Lily. I meet a lot of those people.”

“As an office manager.” The condescension in her voice cut like shears through the hedge. “You told me when we met that you'd own Blue Grass.”

“Spence and I will, and Martha too, when—”

“If your parents don't see the need to take a back seat soon, I'll be the one to make a change. I've got to go in to work. The Chrysler'll be ready by five.”

“I'll pick you up here a little after. You remember I'll be out for dinner? I'm chairing the local meeting.”

“How could I forget? You and your toy trains!”

I heard her heels snapping across the parking lot, and I could almost see her teased honey-colored hair, the make-up applied to perfection, and the clothes chosen to make a safe statement at any country club anywhere.

I heard Richard sigh and start the engine.

And I felt sorrier for Richard Franklin right then than I had since the day I met him…

Jack didn't come back to Alan's that night. And Alan stayed up most of it, kicking himself from one room to another, even after walking four or five miles in the dark.

He dissected his talk with Jo and his lecture to Jack too, praying hard that he hadn't done Jack some kind of serious damage. He'd been more blunt than he'd meant to be, because he'd been whipped up and raw himself after talking about Jane.

He'd seen the change in Jo too, the look on her face that took him by surprise. As though something young and fragile had withered away and died.

He was trying to remember when that was, and what it was he'd told her. Lying to himself like a ten-year-old. When he knew exactly what he'd said.

And if he wanted to be honest with himself – and he told himself it was time – he'd said it half deliberately.

Protecting himself?

Or her?

And why would he see the need?

Because it gave him pause that he liked the way she attacked life hard and fast and deliberate. He liked her straightforwardness too. And that she was interested in all kinds of things, and was good at a large number. He respected the way she was raising Emmy, the love and the judgment and the common sense in the consistent way she trained her.

He'd seen her do what ought to be done in other ways too, even when she'd whined first. She'd coped with a lot over the years. And apparently fairly well. Though he didn't know much firsthand.

You do know what Tom said. Or don't you trust him?

And you've seen her with Toss, and with Jack and Buddy, and with Tara and Spence too, when you think about it, as well as Emmy and Sam. There's plenty of data there you've put together yourself.

So what is it you're running from?

Getting involved, and getting left again?

That's doing what Jack does. Fearing failure. Avoiding risk. Hiding yourself away.

Man, I hope Jack's not getting loaded. If he is, it's largely your fault, and you'd better think about what you could do to help him regroup.

Thursday, May 10, 1962

A
s it happened, Jack didn't. He'd started to, but stopped at the last minute, after leaning and looking over the edge – arguing with himself till his throat was sore and his lips were cracked, in the parking lot of the Stirrup And Saddle, while he smoked half a pack of Camels.

He drove off, finally, scattering gravel, and found a cheap motel, where he took a shower and climbed into bed and slept better than normal.

He got to Blue Grass Horse Vans on time and worked inside, when he didn't want to, washing walls and stripping wax off linoleum and patching cracks in concrete floors inside the plant.

When he got back to the house that night, Alan apologized for being hard on him. But Jack said he'd needed to hear it, and Alan had earned the right. They went back to being careful – to making enough room for each other they could get along day-after-day.

Most of that week came and went without too much drama. Jo worked at home on the lab at Equine Pharmaceuticals, drawing plans and researching lab cabinets. She and Alan discussed what she'd done on the phone Thursday, and he told her he'd be leaving the next day to spend the weekend with his folks. It was their forty-second anniversary, and he was going home to surprise them. She told him she hoped he had a good trip and hung up before he answered – not wanting to seem too interested or be anything but businesslike.

Buddy got his mare bred at Mercer's that day too.

And Tara came to work and avoided Spencer as much as he avoided her so he began to feel less like he was holding his breath, waiting for a knife in the night.

Friday, May 18, 1962

Alice had begun to get some strength back at home, though she still had to keep her legs up more than she liked. She wanted to start painting – to spend every minute while she recuperated working on paintings she'd been thinking about for the best part of a year.