Call Me Joe (41 page)

The marshals dragged her out. We could hear her screaming as they exited the building and crossed the front terrace. Then car doors slammed, engines revved, and she was gone.

"I'm…I'm speechless," Gene Kasten said to Art.

"Mr. Kasten," I said quickly, "you know Stephen Ogburn, don't you?"

He stiffened and shifted in his seat.

"I'm…I'm not at liberty to…"

"Yeah, you are," I snapped. "Stephen Ogburn, Special Assistant for Security to the President, old Navy buddy of mine. Steve told me how you came to the President for help, back when your daughter was taken. That was Bush the elder, right? Steve was there as a junior council, then. Imagine my surprise when he told me that you had approached the feds, alright, but it was to ask them not to get her back. They were close to a plan with the Spaniards but you got it nixed."

Abigail came out of her chair like a wildcat.

"You fucking…" she screamed and was on him in a fury of teeth, nails, fists, feet and knees. The attorneys leaped to their feet, ashen and pie-eyed and started pulling them apart.

Aaron went over and picked up Abigail gently, by the waist, and carried her to the other side of the room.

"Mr. North," the lead attorney snapped, "may I speak now?"

"Sure," I shrugged. "Who's stopping you?'"

He glared at me hotly and shuffled some papers.

"You know, of course, that none of this is going to be admissible in court?"

"Boy, you guys are really slow, aren't ya?" I smiled.

"I fail to see the point of all this if it can't go to court...which it can't. All this information was obtained by false..." he began.

"Fuck court," I snarled, "I'm sure, to ineffectual jerks like you, these games you play, with all the prissy little rules and rituals, are the be-all and end-all. Not to me. I don't care about court. I don't need to prove any of this. I did what I came to do. Whatever happens from here on out is between these folks. Now, at least, they know who and what they really are. The D.A. has what I have on Jane, by now, and she's in a fix, but she can put it behind her, if she somehow gets a clue. It's going to make a dandy feature on C.N.N. right about…now, actually. It certainly has that one magic element:  Rich peoples' shenanigans."

The other attorney stood and faced the Wrights.

"Dr. Wright," he said stiffly. "I'm afraid I can no longer represent you. I have one hard and fast rule. I do not let clients lie to me. You have. Good day, sir. I'll tear up your final bill.

He scooped up his briefcase and marched stiffly out.

"I'm tempted to tell you that, Gene," the lead attorney said sternly. "That whole charade you put me through when she went missing…"

"Did you bill the hours, Roger?" Gene Kasten said absently.

"Yes," Roger said, "we did."

"Well, alright then," Kasten said wearily. "You bill me and my companies lot of hours every year, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Then you'll get over the momentary umbrage," Kasten murmured.

Jane Wright was openly sobbing into a fistful of Kleenex. She looked up, red-eyed, and turned to her father.

"Why?" she said in a strangled whisper. "I'm not billing any hours, you bastard, and you abandoned my sister!"

"The maniac was threatening to kill us all!" Kasten shouted. "Dageneau. Your biological father. He'd killed a lot of people, Janie. He'd have done it without a second thought."

"Why did he even want her?" Art asked. "Christ, Gene, he made that child a…a monster."

"According to Scotland Yard," I added, "she's killed at least 18 people herself and helped kill hundreds.

"She was the troubled one even then," Abigail whispered, "Moody, combative…she seemed to…to know, somehow, that she…didn't belong to us."

"Hate me if you want to," Kasten whispered. "I won't blame you. I did what I had to do to protect…the rest of us."

I looked at Aaron. His eyes were rimmed with tears as he slumped in his chair. Jack saw me looking at him and reached over, laying his hand gently on Aaron's arm.

"I hate this," I murmured. "You have no idea how much I hate this. I especially hate what happened to that child and the literally worldwide ripple effect it came to have. I especially hate the part about Joe. He was, fundamentally, a good man, a good soldier. If Katja hadn't lit the fuse to his confusion over this resort, he'd have retired, someday, with the thanks of a grateful nation. He was just a poor, simple kid from Oregon who wasn't smart enough, when he was younger, to question his orders. In the final analysis, though, that will…it was like him reaching out from the grave to handcuff Katja…and I think it may not have been a coincidence. I'm wondering if he had some help."

I glared at Clayton Wright. He stared at me steadily but, after a few seconds, I saw his resolve falter. He glanced out the window and cleared his throat.

"I hate to be practical, here," Clay Wright said evenly, "but where does this leave the resort?"

"On schedule," I shrugged. "They take Lucille and Marcus ballots, they sign for real, and you're good to go. Jack?"

"Nothing else to do," he sighed. "Way the contracts read, we can't force a sale, but I think Tony and I need to talk."

"I quite agree," Pembroke said gravely. "My God, look at what this has cost! Six wonderful men, untold misery. We may not force a sale but I can do one thing, with Jack's agreement and Arthur as witness?"

"I'm on it," Art murmured reaching over and tapping his associate on the knee. She whipped out a legal pad and sat at the ready.

"I, as principal owner of Coyote Creek Resort, hereby ban Doctor and Mrs. Clayton Wright from any and all properties owned or operated by Pembroke and Hawkes, Pembroke Property Ventures, or Mountain Empire Partners. You are to have no access to the resort, your lodge lease is revoked and you no longer publicly represent Coyote Creek in any way. Subject to agreement of the majority partner…"

"Seconded," Jack barked.

"All in favor say 'aye'."

"Aye," said Jack, Tony, and Rod Hooks.

"Opposed?"

"No," Wright said hotly.

"Ayes have it." Pembroke growled, "Jack, I'd appreciate it if you'd call Steptoe and get Joe's property fenced and hire round-the-clock guards. Permanently. If Jane Wright shows up there ever again, lock her up.

"Done," Jack snapped.

"You can't do that!" Jane pleaded. "You don't own his land!"

"His daughter owns his land," I pointed out, "and the will names her guardians."

"Who. .who are they?" Gene Kasten asked.

"You," I sighed. "You and Mr. and Mrs. Lars Reijnen of Joseph, Oregon."

"Who is that?" Art asked.

"Joe's parents," I said quietly.

"I don't get something," Jack blurted out. "How did the C.I.A. find you that fast?"

"They found the phone," I chuckled. "I knew they were coming, especially when I activated it. I didn't know they'd get here so fast.

"I 'bout shit my drawers," one of Art's faceless clerks murmured.

I laughed. So did Jack, Art, and Aaron. It felt good.

"Stanley!" Art smiled.

"Well, I did," Stanley said blushing.

"I just have one question for you, Jane," I said sternly. "You overheard a phone conversation between Clayton and Joe. You knew your father had done something with the government. You also knew your sister had a child, didn't you?"

"Yes," she said in a tiny voice.

"Why didn't you ever say anything to anybody?" I asked.

"Who was I going to tell?" she shouted. "Jesus Christ, don't you think I know I'm just a hood ornament to this bunch? I've tried to talk to my mother about Dad's shenanigans but it's like talking to a sock puppet. I've tried, at various times, to do something with my life. Nobody would hear of it!" 'Just enjoy your life,' they'd always say. My parents, my husband, all my friends. Art's daughter, my best friend, she's a physical therapist. She does things. Even she told me to travel, study fashion, 'enjoy life'. I found some gold. Me. I dug it out with my bare hands and a crowbar. I sold it. I banked the money. I did it. It wasn't even about the money. It was that the money came from me. Shit, I've never wanted for money. I have $4 million in the bank. Clay has $80 million. But I got mine with my bare hands. Hell…I stole it from my own niece. She can have it. If I've broken laws, so be it. I'll face it and pay the price. But, from this day on, I'm going to create a life in which I do something and you three can be a part of it…or not. Your choice."

"Of course we're part of it," Gene choked. "We love you, honey."

"I do, too," Clay Wright said quietly, "although, at the moment, I'm really wondering why."

"Jesus," I chuckled, "I'm gonna puke. I'm outta here. Mr. Kasten, get out your passport and get packed. You and I are going to Oregon and then to Italy."

"Why…why are you going?" Kasten asked, bewildered.

"Because Alicia's dad should have a friend present." I rumbled, “And that is not a request."



Snapshots, images frozen in my mind and unlikely to ever fade:

A weary, bewildered 70-ish couple on a broad plank porch of a bed 'n' breakfast in Joseph, Oregon. Dawning pain and realization and then fresh grief etched upon his pleasant face, her faded beauty.

The blooming of a fresh hope as they discover that suddenly, miraculously, they have a grandchild…and that their long-lost son remembered them fondly, after all the empty years.

The stunned, almost frightened expression on their faces as they read that their son has left them over $5 million in his will. The sunlight in her sweet face and the shimmering tracks of her tears.

Endless driving to Portland with all conversation exhausted in the first hour.

Airplanes. Meal carts, Scotch in tiny bottles, brief glimpses of Chicago, New York, Amsterdam, and Rome. Smaller plane to Solano. The taxi driver's fractured English.

A tiny, perfect child in a velvet dress, with shiny black shoes and red bows in her pale blonde hair. The waxing and waning of Joe's face and then Joanna's in her tiny visage.

"Are you my grandpa?" she says in a tiny, musical voice, her vowels drenched in Italian.

"Yes, I am," Gene Kasten says quietly, almost unable to speak.

More planes, this time with coloring books, crayons, and dolls of many kinds.

Driving from Portland, her tiny eyes wide and astonished.

Two grandmothers—the very grand one from Spokane, the truly grand one from Joseph—fighting back tears as their grandchild gravely repeats what her Italian nanny had taught her to say:  "Hello, I am Alicia and I am very pleased to meet you."

Three men seated on a broad plank porch, sipping Scotch whisky from jelly glasses. To toast their miraculous new privilege and challenge. One matches toast for toast but is lost in bleak and desperate memories as countless as the ocean of stars spinning across the perfect blackness of the Oregon night.

Another sunset. In the fading glow of a brilliant day, eight people huddled awkwardly before a neat, rectangular hole in the rock-strewn hillside.