“So what’s going on?” I asked as I stepped in behind the tall woman, noting the way the dirty work jeans seemed to cling to her shapely form. I’d caught myself noticing that shape a few times when we’d crossed paths, but only in a passing, abstract fashion. Today, I also noted the lack of makeup and the exhaustion shadowing her eyes did little to conceal that this was an attractive woman in her prime.
“Let’s talk about it later,” Nancy muttered under her breath, and I caught her glance in Barbara’s direction. To my knowledge, the two women had never met, but something sparked in the back of my head. Someone, probably Wade or her sister, must have warned her about Barbara’s wagging tongue.
“I’m on mandatory twenty-four hours down time,” Nancy said instead, projecting her voice, “and I wanted to check in with how you were coming along before heading home.”
I waved my hands theatrically, gesturing around.
The waiting room boasted two leather sofas and a matching easy chair arranged around a square, glass-topped coffee table with wrought iron legs centered in the middle of the twenty-foot-wide, slightly longer space. Barbara’s work area, with an L-shaped desk and credenza setup and the now-ruined printer, sat deeper in the room near a set of three doors. The righthand door led to the small restroom, while the one on the left opened into my office.
The door in the middle went through to the back of the building where I had set up a series of partitions to cut the space into a modest break area on one side, including a mini-fridge and microwave with a round table and four chairs. The other side held the heavy printer and a five-drawer wooden cabinet for assorted office supplies, now nearly empty. The partitions, simple five-foot-tall, six-foot-long cubicle walls, were arranged to form a short hallway leading to the back door. I’d gotten the partitions from an office supply store shortly after I’d opened the office, since I had no need for the old-style file room in the back. Nearly all of the paper files I needed to keep handy either rested in a long, narrow filing cabinet in my office or resided in Barbara’s credenza. We weren’t a paperless office, but computers did remove a great deal of extraneous dead trees from the legal profession.
“Thanks to Barbara’s help, we’re progressing rapidly, but it’ll be some time before the office reopens,” I explained, again playing to the audience a bit.
“Well, if you have a few minutes, I’d like to talk to you about a small matter. I need some legal advice,” Nancy inquired, and I turned to Barbara to give her a little nod before speaking.
“Barbara, why don’t you call it a day?” I suggested, fishing around in my pocket for the small roll of bills I’d already counted. “We can’t get much more done here until the work crews come in, and I can give you the particulars later if I need you to open a new file.”
Barbara opened her mouth to protest, then took another look around the room, taking in the waterlogged state of the chairs and the ruined leather sofas. The whole place stank of stagnant water, rapidly spreading mold, and a backed-up sewer line. While she looked, I withdrew the cash and forced it into Barbara’s hand before she could make a counter argument.
“Just go home and play with the grandkids, or Milton,” I admonished, “and if we can get this practice back in shape, I’ll give you a call.”
Barbara had the good grace to giggle at my insinuation before stuffing the bills into her purse and heading for the back door. I’d told her repeatedly that the office was a lost cause in this condition, but I don’t think the reality sank in until that moment.
Five minutes later, Barbara was on her way home and I was pouring Nancy a cup of coffee I’d prepared for her in the break room. With the power still down, I’d brought a little camp stove and the proper preparations for coffee. I loved coffee and I had stockpiled cases of vacuum-packed goodness at home, but eventually that was going to run out if the transportation system ended up laying an egg. Nancy took hers black, while I added a single sugar packet to the mix.
While I was stirring my coffee, Nancy set her mug on the nearby desk top and plucked a wrinkled dollar bill out of her jeans pocket. Thrusting the cash my way, Nancy spoke up.
“That makes you my lawyer, right? So that way, you can’t be forced to talk about what I’m about to tell you,” she announced.
“Ah, yeah,” I agreed. “I’m already your attorney, Nancy. I took that job when I helped out at your apartment, and since I never ended the relationship after, then you’ve been relying on my legal advice since then.”
“Really? I never thought about it that way. I thought you got paid for services and once they were performed, you were done.”
Not wanting to get into the ethics and legalities, I just nodded and gave a brief rundown. “This is fine, Nancy. I’m your attorney until you tell me I’m not. Or I tell you the same, okay?”
“That’s fine, Bryan. I just…I heard something at work and I wanted to get your advice.”
“No problem. Just remember, there are still certain rules. You can’t talk about crimes you’re planning to commit in the future, for instance.” I lowered my voice conspiratorially. “If one of the guys at work told you there’s no power on at Pierson’s Pawn and the back door is standing wide open, just don’t tell me you’re planning to loot the store. I mean, obviously, go loot it. Just don’t tell me about it.”
With my deadpan delivery, it took Nancy a moment to realize I was teasing. The tension around her pretty eyes seemed to fade just a bit, but nothing could hide the dark circles under her eyes that proclaimed her exhaustion.
Pierson’s was a good choice, since the regional chain of payday loan and pawn shops had a particularly poor reputation when it came to ripping off customers with harsh repayment terms, as well as persistent rumors of fencing for the local criminal element. If you had something stolen, chances were good the items would show up on the sales floor at Pierson’s. They always had the requisite paperwork on file, but still the whisper stream hinted at nefarious connections. So picking them as the butt of my joke would have meant more to a local, but still she forced a smile.
“Okay, nothing like that,” Nancy assured me. “Just, you know I told you the other day how we were running out of replacement poles?”
“Yeah, that was not good news, but I kind of expected it. Same with the transformers, really.”
The Co-Op had a yard seemingly packed with the forty foot plus long, creosote-treated poles, but when you factored in the number of lines destroyed by something like this hurricane, then those stocks could become depleted in just a few days.
“Well, we’re out. Completely,” Nancy announced with a fierce exhale of breath. “Same with the transformers. Well, there’s some guys back at the shop trying to refurbish some of them, stripping the demolished ones for parts to fix the ones they can, but it will be a dozen at best.”
“But what’s got you so riled up?”
Nancy looked down, as if embarrassed.
“We aren’t getting any more replacements for a while. Not sure how long, but not any time soon.”
Then she dropped her voice low, barely above the sound of the water dripping somewhere in the building. “And there are no other crews coming to help, either.”
“Well, hell,” I grumbled. “That information is secret, I take it?”
Nancy nodded, then took a sip of her rapidly cooling coffee.
“I wasn’t eavesdropping,” she explained, a bit defensively, “but after I finished loading out the truck with the last set of poles, I was supposed to go see Walter for my next assignment.”
I knew who she meant. I couldn’t recall ever meeting the man, but the Chief of Operations for the Co-Op was a fairly large wheel in this town. Walter Pine ran an outfit that employed a lot of people in the county. Hundreds, if you counted all the clerks, office personnel and such, in addition to the linemen, technicians, and drivers.
“I see, so Walter was having a disagreement with someone over the phone, and you overheard things he might not want spread around.”
Nancy nodded again.
“I don’t know who the other person was, Bryan. Walter can get pretty loud on the phone when he gets worked up, but all I heard was one side of the conversation. I caught a first name, Gary, but from the way Walter spoke, I’m thinking he works for one of the state agencies. Anyway, Walter was pissed. Despite all the cooperative agreements they have in place, the other utilities were giving us the cold shoulder. Not just Albany County, but the whole state, from the way it sounded.”
“Could you tell why?” I asked, worried to hear the answer.
“Again, I couldn’t hear this Gary person’s comments, but from Walter’s shouting, there were two main reasons. First was a concern about fuel expenditures, and concerns about being able to replace the gas they would burn. Walter couldn’t guarantee they would be reimbursed, or made whole for what they used. Second, from Walter’s responses, I could tell most of the states involved in the cooperative arrangement have either already taken a beating, or have given all they could spare.”
I thought about the implications for over a minute before saying anything. We’d been meaning to get the antennas back up shortly, and this made for an added incentive. We all knew about the West Coast states, and even the East Coast and Gulf States all received a share of the flooding, which I knew would automatically trigger outages. But what about the Midwest, or even the North Central states? Was Missouri under water, or Nebraska in the midst of a blizzard and nobody bothered to report it on the news?
What Nancy said made sense, sort of, but if states were unwilling to fulfill their obligations at this early stage in the disaster, I wondered how things would stand in another six months, or two years from now.
“So, no power restoration for the foreseeable future? That’s going to complicate things,” I finally said.
Nancy paused, and her tired expression was briefly replaced with something else.
“Actually, we should have power restored to the farm sometime tomorrow,” Nancy said, her voice again only slightly above a whisper. “They’ll install a refurbished transformer, but it’ll be something. Walter wanted everybody who was on the repair and maintenance crews to have their service restored if at all feasible. I…I filed a change of address form this week, and I listed your place as my new location.”
“And you’re feeling guilty about it,” I supplied, getting it now. All that other stuff, the lack of replacement items and the failure of the other work crews to show up had an effect, but it was the sick feeling of getting special treatment when others were not had Nancy all wound up.
I was about to say something when I heard the sound of heavy footsteps stomping in the front of the office, followed by a demanding bellow.
“Albany County Sheriff’s Department! These premises have been condemned by the Albany County Sheriff! Ya’ll need to come out now with your hands raised!”
Busted, I thought like a guilty fifth grader caught making out in the coat closet, before my higher brain function exerted itself.
“Stay cool,” I said softly to Nancy. “These yahoos are not our friends. Just like a traffic stop.”
“Coming out, Deputy!” I yelled back in response through the wall, still keeping a few feet away from the door. “I’m Bryan Hardin and this is…”
“Son, I don’t give a damn who you are!” came the response. “You get out here right now, and I wanna see them hands up!”
Dropping my voice again, I asked carefully, “Are you armed?”
Her headshake in response made me relax a bit. We were not going to get in a shootout with deputies, but them finding weapons on us might provoke an incident. Whether we had the legal right to carry a firearm was beside the point. These deputies sounded worked up and jumpy, so I was going to try to treat them like a big old glass of nitroglycerin. Nice and easy was the best plan.
Awkwardly, I managed to get the door open while keeping my hands up as I led the way out of my office. Nancy stayed about three steps behind me, and her hands were raised as well.
“Well, lookee here, it’s the killer lawyer, and turns out he’s a lady killer as well,” the older of the two deputies quipped under his breath. The man was in his late thirties, about medium height and with a fair, scandinavian complexion that you knew had to burn anytime he stood too close to a lightbulb, much less walking around out in the sun. Him, I recognized.
Ansel Steward served as Sheriff Landshire’s right hand man, a captain in the department, so I wondered what the heck he was doing out in the field rousting trespassers. His younger sidekick was a complete mystery to me, and I thought I’d seen all the deputies, even the jailers, at least in passing over the years. He was in his mid-twenties, tall and tan, with gym muscles filling his uniform shirt and a hint of a tattoo peeking out from the bottom of his cuff. Something about the man made my palms itch, and I made a vow to figure out this newcomer’s identity.
Plastering a sheepish look on my face, I nodded to the older deputy.
“Captain Steward, pardon the mess. I’ve been cleaning up all morning and Miss Prentiss stopped by to ask a question about her case. Didn’t know about the order to close down all the offices.”
I think the politeness threw him off, and I noticed a faint red flush on the captain’s ears as he digested my words. He replied in a more normal tone, and I noted his hand was back at his side rather than gripping the pistol holstered on his Sam Brown belt.
“Yeah, Bernie thinks these old buildings are a hazard until they can be cleaned up,” Captain Steward gestured at the ruined carpets. “Some of the exterior walls look like they’ve been undermined by the flood waters. He was so worried, he’s got us going around to all the businesses to get the people out until the county inspector can get in to take a look.”
“That’s a good idea,” I replied, and it was. “We’re going to be out of here for the foreseeable future. No way I can ask Barbara to come work in this environment. I’ve got a call in to my insurance agent, but since I’m just renting here, I can’t expect much help that way.”
“What about the owners?” the deputy asked, taking a moment to look around and truly take in the scope of the damage. Not just the ruined carpets but the waterlogged furniture, the low shelves holding a row of swollen and unusable copies of old Federal Statute books I used as decoration.
I shrugged. “This space is owned by a real estate company out of Orange. Breen Real Estate. Not sure about the rest of the block. I called yesterday but didn’t get anybody. Couldn’t even leave a message. But I have an idea, if you would allow me…”
I trailed off, gesturing down with my right hand, still raised, if not to previous heights. Captain Steward nodded, muttered something to the other deputy, and I slowly lowered my hand to withdraw the key ring from my jeans pocket.
“I imagine you and the sheriff are worried about squatters getting into these spaces. I was just getting ready to leave when Miss Prentiss stopped by, so I’m all done inside. Like I said, I have no plans, and no way to use this office for now, so let me give you the key. That way, you can count this job as completed, and if there’s anybody messing around here without talking to you first, then you’ll know they’re up to no good.”
As I spoke, I removed the large brass key from the ring and handed it over to the chief deputy.
“What about your clients?” Captain Steward asked, again a bit off-balance by my decision to simply abandon the building. Little did he know, I’d already stripped out anything of value that had survived inside.
“I can come by tomorrow and leave a sign on the door with my cell number. I know the courts are going to be closed again for a while, so not much will be happening that way. I’ll either find a new place in town or just work from my office on the farm.”
“That’s a good idea, Bryan. And yeah, we’re starting to see some issues with the homeless taking up in some of the damaged buildings around town. Hopefully, we can do this with all the buildings on this side of the street where the flooding was the worst.
” Steward volunteered that last bit while nodding to the door. I got the hint, and with a gentlemanly bow, I gestured for Nancy to precede me. It was time to go.
As we approached our parked vehicles, I had a feeling we were being watched. As I stopped to unlock my truck, I made a small waving gesture to Nancy. To anyone observing us, I hoped they would interpret the move as a wave goodbye. For Nancy, I was praying she picked up on the idea to stay back. I’m sure she had questions about what had happened, and what was said.
However, I didn’t know if the sheriff knew just who all was staying at our farm these days, and I wasn’t going to make it easier for them to find out. I wasn’t expecting anyone to follow us out on the road, but I also didn’t want to be seen cozying up to the woman in public.
Cozying? What the heck was I thinking? I was more than ten years older than her, a broken-down widower who’d barely had time for social interaction even before this upheaval started. But Nancy sure had pretty eyes. Deep blue, not the muted gray like I saw in the mirror, but the color of sapphires. Her eyes seemed to peer into my soul, and I couldn’t get her out of my head no matter how hard I tried.
CHAPTER FIVE
After the disturbance in my office and with Nancy’s grim news, we spent the next day getting the rest of our solar panels remounted and setting up the radio antenna. Nancy, with her forced time off from the Co-Op, pitched in and Charles, Pat, Mary, and Sally performed admirably in getting not only the antenna mast back up, but also got two of the three windmills back into operation before noon.
Mike, though pissed a bit to be sidelined from the action, as he put it, did his share and then some by working to get the radio tower back up, then he figured out a way to trim down and segregate our electrical requirements. This would result in having to install multiple new breaker boxes. This allowed us to identify ‘must haves’ from ‘nice to haves’ around the main homestead. In hindsight, this was a no-brainer, but honestly, I’m a little intimidated by electricity and every time Mike and company were in residence, we always had something more important to accomplish. That’s why I’d asked Mike to handle the electrical side of things. We had the wire and the boxes in storage, and now we would make the time for Mike to do what needed doing.
Tertiary Effects Series | Book 2 | Storm Warning Page 4
