The Chardon Chronicles: Season One -- The Harvest Festival (30 page)

He flipped through the pages of the report.
There were a couple of handsome younger men, an older man with
thinning hair and the gaunt, wiry look of a marathoner, and an
extremely attractive brunette with curly brown hair, who habitually
wore tight sweaters and skirts and red heels. Keith chuckled at the
number of photos of her that were attached to the report. He
flipped through the background report on her “Susan Heart
Sandiron”.

“Oh! Aha!” he smacked the desk. He flipped
through the case notes binder to the section on the Old Stone
Gathering Hall in Hudson. Susan Heart married Jeremy Sandiron a few
years ago. He spent a few hours researching the families. The Heart
family were the descendents of Boston Brahmins and the family still
had what looked to be a castle near Boston. The Sandirons were
local commercial real estate developers.

He texted Chloe, “if you wanna be classy you
need at least three names.”

A few minutes later, he got a reply: “WUT?
LOL?”

“Dems da rules.” SEND

He searched his email for the name of a web
site he rarely used. “Backstory4U” until he found his username and
a link to the web site. The site did not show up in search engines
and you could only create an account with an invitation. The
service would create a fake Internet footprint and profile with
just a name and a short biographical description.The service
compiled a list of hits on the fake sites and sent a daily report.
He filled out the forms and picked an alias.

“John Martin Vandevaal” -- that’s money. He
said out loud. He assumed Internet gnomes did the rest of the
magic.

He climbed back into the Healey and cruised
down to Hudson and pulled into the Old Stone Hall parking lot. He
was wearing a chunky red cashmere sweater over a white dress shirt,
khakis, a knock off Tag Heuer watch, and a pair of wayfarers. He
did his best to exude the idea that he owned a yacht and was
thinking about upgrading to a mega yacht because there wasn’t
enough space for a helicopter landing pad.

He walked up to the front doors. The doors
were elaborately hand carved and stained in multiple tones. A light
toned serpent wound around the gap between the doors. On the left
side of the door were representations of the planets, the moon, and
the Sun, and on the right side of the door there were several human
forms, carved in the greek classical style, linked to each planet.
There were no handles.

He walked around the side of the building. It
was surrounded by low immaculately trimmed shrubs. The grass was
close cropped and perfect, like a putting green. The building had
narrow gothic stained glass windows, and the roof was tiled in
slate with heavily patinated copper flashing. Keith didn’t see any
utility hookups, apparently they were tucked away in some
underground hidden place.

There was a garden at the back of the
building. A crushed gravel path cut through beds of flowers and
knee high hedges that formed concentric arcs around a fountain. The
fountain was a simple flat polished black stone slab. Water was
pumped out underneath a polished black stone cube that was about
six feet on each side. The cube was actually suspended on a film of
water, and slowly spun on its central axis.

Keith snapped a couple of pictures with his
phone. The back doors of the building were simple wooden slabs, but
they also lacked handles. Finally he circled around to the parking
lot side. A set of six polished black slabs served as steps and led
up to black steel slabs that served as double doors. They did have
handles. Keith tugged the handles, but they were locked. There was
no discernable keyhole.

“What are you doing?” a man called out to him
from across the parking lot. Keith recognized Reichstaff.

Keith waved and walked over. Reichstaff
looked him up and down, then looked through him with a practiced
indifference. Keith said, “My daughter and I are new in town and we
are looking for a church. I noticed this building when driving
through. It is a striking place. Do you know anything about
it?”

“We’re not a church.” The man spoke carefully
and coldly.

Keith gestured at the building, “It has that
look...”

“You said you have a daughter. Do you have
pictures of this girl?” Reichstaff said.

Keith paused. Reichstaff’s eyes gave nothing
away. “Yes, in fact, I do.” Keith opened his phone and flicked to a
picture of Chloe at her birthday the previous year. She wore a
dress and they went out to dinner.

Reichstaff assessed the picture for a minute,
then handed the phone back. “Our congregation is an exclusive
group, but
all
can be of use. Come here Saturday at 6PM if
you are interested in playing a part. Your daughter must come--she
should wear a red dress with a zip-up back.” He put a hand on
Keith’s shoulder and examined his face. “What is your name?”

“John Martin Vandevaal.”

“Mr. Vandevaal, I will see you and your
daughter on Saturday.” Reichstaff said coldly and walked to the
steel doors. He pulled one open and disappeared into the
building.

Keith felt a creeping unease. He shook it off
and climbed back into the Austin Healey and drove to the
office.

He texted Chloe, “We have an important,
exciting chore to do on Saturday at 6PM.” SEND

She texted back, “‘Exciting’? Doubt it. Have
plans already! ;(”

He tapped his fingers on the table.
Reichstaff left him cold and he was reluctant to bring Chloe to the
Hall, but he thought it might crack the case wide open. He knew how
to pique her interest. He very rarely talked about work, but Chloe
was always itching to get involved whenever he brought it up.

“OK. Well, it’s for a case, but never mind.”
SEND

A few minutes later she replied, “do
tell…”

“Deets later! U in?” SEND

“OK. I’m a sucker. I’m in” she replied.

He looked forward to sharing the experience
of working on a case with his daughter, but was also vaguely
worried. “We’ll just need to be careful.” he said out loud.

He texted her again, “Ask Tracy if we can
borrow her car again?” SEND

“Ugh. OK. 1 sec…” she replied.

“Yeah. NP” she wrote a few seconds later.
“But she says I need to drive.”

Morgan’s life was becoming a real drag. He
woke up and went to school, uncertain he’d be able to graduate,
then he went to the garage and worked until close, which only
knocked $80 less federal, state, and local taxes off his bill every
day. When he got home, he corresponded with Alfonse and did
research. The coin project, they were calling it ‘Project Diogenes’
was fascinating to him, but he was so tired each night that he felt
completely empty and drained when he got into bed. His school work
went completely by the wayside and for the first time, he really
struggled in his classes. He was irritable with everyone about
everything.

Saturday rolled around, and his father banged
on his door. “Let’s go, Morgan, rise and shine.”

Morgan put his arm over his eyes and sighed
heavily. “What’s the point? What another $100? Fuck it.” he never
swore in front of his parents. The F-bomb hung in the air.

“You brought this on yourself, buddy. I’m
trying to help you out here.”

Morgan sat up. He looked at his father. “I’m
not going in.”

His father pursed his lips together, stifling
his anger. He said, “Fine, take a break this morning, but if you
don’t get those units in that South Range Rover repaired by
mid-day, there’ll be hell to pay!”

For the first time since he broke the block
in the school wall, Morgan saw he had a choice in what he would do.
It was a slightly scary feeling, but he also felt an invisible
burden slip off his shoulders.

He took a long shower, then loaded up a bag
with his research materials and rode over to the Wells farm.

He said hello to Robbie, who was out on the
patio, and went inside to the library. He’d familiarized himself
with the library's index system. It really was like a paper
Internet. He’d find a book and the associated notebook on a shelf.
The notebook had cross references and commentary that could lead
him to another shelf. He found the handwriting in the notebooks was
also a clue--it seemed the same person or small group of people had
at times, been interested in what he was looking at. He
occasionally added his notes and joined the age old conversation.
He spent hours spelunking through the library following leads about
the two groups that formed in Florence around 1462. He called one
Club Medici, and the other Club Diogenes.

More often than not, Morgan ran into
something he had never learned about, or didn’t understand. He
wrote it down, then went off on the tangent doing more research. He
kept at it because, little by little a story was emerging, and the
gaps in his knowledge were shrinking.

He was tapping a pencil eraser against his
head when he heard a car door slam. He looked out the window and
saw his Dad’s shop truck.

“Oh shit.” Morgan said. It had been years
since his father went to the Wells house. He got up and hurried
outside.

Robbie pointed a thumb at Morgan, “Hey, there
he is!”

“OK, Morgan get your stuff. Let’s go. We have
work to do.”

“Dad, I’m not working today.” Morgan said
calmly.

“What are you doing that’s so much more
important than graduating?” His father held out his hands.

Morgan shook his head. “I just don’t want to
work today.”

His father looked at Robbie, “Can you believe
these kids?! My old man would
never
let me talk back.”

Robbie sipped his coffee. “Hey, Mike, can one
day off work for a seventeen year old kid really be such a big
deal?”

Mike Klerc tried to remain calm. He said,
“Robbie, I’ve known you a long time. You’ve been good to Morgan, a
good customer, and were decent to me when a lot of other people
weren’t, but this is none of your business.”

Robbie nodded, “No it’s not. It’s between you
and Morgan.”

“Look, Morgan, you’re a smart kid. You’ve got
a chance to go to college and make something of your life. Why not
just get this bill paid
then
do what you want?” His father
pleaded.

“I’ll be back in the garage tomorrow.” Morgan
said firmly.

Mike Klerc stifled the urge to shout. He
nodded stiffly and climbed back in his car. He closed the door
calmly, though he felt like slamming it off the hinges. He turned
around and drove down the drive.

Morgan apologized, “Sorry about that,
Robbie.”

Robbie held up his hand, “From what I’ve seen
it can be difficult to be a parent. My job with you kids is a lot
easier--to give you a taste of real life, then you can do with it
as you like. These past few years, I never once parented Tracy. I
just answered questions when she got in a jam. I dunno.” He
shrugged.

Keith and Chloe drove to his office a few
hours in the afternoon, while Tracy drove the Cowmobile over to the
farm.

Chloe was wearing a red shoulderless dress
with a zip up back. She brought black heels, but was wearing tennis
shoes in the office. Keith gave her the cliff’s notes version of
his case and showed her the binder.

She flipped through the pages. “So, you did
all of this?” she hefted the binder. It was getting heavy and held
a thick phone book’s worth of paper of all types. He had organized
it with dividers.

“Yep, and you thought my job was all about
the glamor. So, flip to that section that says Church.”

“I never thought your job was about glamor of
any kind.” She smirked. She flipped through the pages and looked at
the photos. She paused on one.

“That’s Susan Heart Sandiron. Of course, you
don’t know that.”

“Who am I again?”

“Chloe Martin Vandevaal.”

“Is that supposed to be Dutch?”

“Yep. Only the most Dutchest blood flows
through our imaginary veins. Our family settled here before the
Revolutionary War. If you search for us on the Internet you’ll find
our whole biography.”

She searched and laughed, “Oh man, how did
you do that? The fake me even exists.”

“I have my secrets. I’ll tell you later. So
listen, we need to be a little serious here. I feel a little uneasy
about these people, so let’s go over some worst case
scenarios.”

“Worst case? It’s a church!” She said.

“Well, Jim Jones was just a preacher.”

“If they offer me Kool-Aid, I’ll decline.”
she deadpanned.

“First thing, I’m not going to take a gun
inside… But, there will be a gun in the glove compartment.”

“Of Tracy’s car…” she added.

He rubbed his bald head, “Yeah, of your 17
year old friend’s car. Omelettes and eggs.” he shrugged. “We’ll
also leave the keys on the driver’s side wheel. If something weird
happens and you need to take off without me, wait at BagelCo for an
hour. If I don’t show, go to the Wells farm.”