“He died right as the three-day lease to the warehouse expired. I left what little remained of him in the locker and was subsequently picked up by Carlos and friends. His friends assured me they would see to the cleanup of the warehouse.
“Two weeks later, Carlos told me that the warehouse had burned to the ground. It was a total loss and arson was suspected. My only thought: that’s why people have insurance, isn’t it?
“Now you have it. There’s more, should you ever wish to have the exquisite details. But this is the quick and dirty and, I’m guessing, it’s all you really want or need to know.”
Edward looked at his son, then Misti, expecting some response - horror, approval, angst. Nothing but two young adults sitting side by side holding hands and occasionally leaning forward with interest.
Finally, Adam spoke up and asked, “Do you regret what you did, Dad? Are you sorry you did that to yourself?”
Edward paused, surprised by the question. “Nope. Not in the least. My only regret was not having a week to truly impart a lesson to Danny-boy before he passed to the great beyond. I felt nothing then, and even less now. Other than complete and utter satisfaction.”
Edward continued, thoughtfully. “Danny took something away from me and from you we may never be able to come to terms with. I wanted him to understand how that would affect his life going forward, however brief. Three days may not sound like much time and, for you and me, it isn’t. But for Danny-boy, those three days were an eternity of hell, anguish and pain. I can guarantee you that every hour of his last three days on this plane of existence were like ten years of average misery to anyone else. So, I am confident that, just before he died, he did fully comprehend and understand the pain we were going to experience without my Anna, your mother, in our lives.”
Misti spoke up, “Who else knows?”
“The details? Nobody. Not even your Dad. I have never spoken to anyone about the details of this episode except to you two here today. Although, suffice it to say, that the authorities who questioned me about the death of Danny Figueroa were unconvinced that I was far from blameless in his death. But, having no evidence and, understanding the circumstances, they let the matter drop – with a warning to go away and stay out of their jurisdiction. A week after our chat, the file on Anna’s death was closed. I have never been back to LA, discretion being the better part of valor.
Silence blasted the room. Finally, Adam stood, offering a hand up to his Misti. He walked to his father and hugged him for a while, told him he loved and understood him a little better. Adam said that he was now able to understand the burden Edward had carried for them both, and how much that meant to him.
Misti took her turn hugging Edward. Then she said, “You’re royally fucked up in the head old man, but I love you more today than I did yesterday, and that was considerable. I know you have always understood Adam and understood me. Understood our special needs and gifts. I just never realized how deeply you understood what it means to be us. I will never doubt your understanding or sincerity again.”
Adam and Misti turned away, hand in hand and slowly walked back toward home.
Adam turned to his wife and smiled. “What?” she said.
“You horny?” he asked quietly.
“Wet as the Mississippi River in spring.”
“Good.” Adam replied, “This may take some time and cause some bruises. Can’t be certain.”
“And I promise not to hurt you. Much. First one home gets on top – for the first hour.”
They raced off but Misti let Adam run ahead to burn off some energy. He’d still be super hyper by the time she got home minutes later and they were both anxious to visit that dark place that they so seldom were able to go together and at the same time. They had found their catalyst and, afterward, their ecstasy.
Their lives could never be the same after that.
Chapter 36
The phone rang in her well-appointed and tasteful office, wall coverings by local artists, limited and first edition books carefully arranged on her polished mahogany wall shelves and an acceptable level of clutter in, on and around her massive desk. She herself was seated in a huge overstuffed reclining chair, glasses slung low against the tip of her nose, giving her an air of professorial authority. Her attire was nouveau riche Wall Street, elegant and as classy as was her sleek frame. Though a highly credentialed public official with years of experience traveling around the world as a backdrop, she had found a way to remain as slim and fit as an eighteen-year-old in despite a crushing schedule not very favorable to working out.
As a woman, the challenges were great when traveling in third world countries. From ‘appropriate’ work attire to cultural prohibitions on gender fraternization, from driving restrictions to running in sweats, and from veiled insults to outright religious hostility, Mary McQueen Outlander had seen and a great deal in her fifty-something years on planet Earth. And, over the years, she had developed a kind of calm and reassuring demeanor that often won over her hardliner opposites in tense negotiations and made them forget, if just for that moment of decision, that Mary McQueen Outlander was a formidable, reliable and dependable counterpart who could be trusted to deliver on whatever she had promised.
MMQ, the pre-marital acronym and insider nickname by which she was known at State, had married her diplomat husband, Phillip Agee Outlander III, in an immense wedding ceremony just outside of DC thirty years earlier on a warm summer day. Two children, a boy and a girl soon arrived and, with them, the pressure to continue procreating came abruptly to an end. Her husband, in-laws and her parents were completely satisfied and now fully expected Mary to settle into a life in suburban Washington filled with galas, parties and charitable functions.
Sadly, for them, she chose to manage the children, her husband and her career between trips abroad and a challenging work schedule making time for workouts, hobbies and friends. Her friends. Not ‘friends’ with connections both social and political but friends she could relate to and relax with. Her ‘girl mafia’ buddies worked at State, Justice and occasionally in the White House when the correct political party occupied 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. She remained in touch with a whole host of buddies throughout the remainder of government at all levels and departments along with a smattering of colleagues who had defected along the way into the private sector.
Mary Elizabeth McQueen Outlander could be as tough as nails or as soft as alpaca down, depending on what was needed at that exact moment.
Her private life had always been a bit of a secret, in fact informally viewed as top secret, not by design, but by choice. Prior to the death of her husband three years earlier, Mary felt ‘happy enough’ with her life, was always cheerful and seemingly happy with her choice of mates. Her marriage itself was good, not great, and she didn’t ask for more than she felt she was entitled: a good man, great children and a fulfilling job. If she was sometimes irritated with the things that Phillip would say, his conservative politics or his stuffy outlook on the ‘little people’, she would remind herself that compared to most of the rest of the world of women, she was living the dream. Nobody said it would be perfection every day. She just tried to average the good with the bad and hope for harmony if not outright happiness.
Mary herself was a model of modern womanhood, according to those around her who knew her well. Though they wondered what thirty solid years of intense work, motherhood and marriage might have wrecked on her physical wellbeing, there were no outward signs of distress, depression or anxiety. She was fully functional and steady. If anything was wrong, they couldn’t spot it.
Her husband had been killed on a far off diplomatic assignment to an unstable part of the world. She had warned him not to go, understanding that this type of assignment was better suited to men of a different nature. Phillip was fit and athletic and in good shape generally. But he was soft in the attributes one required for duty in lawless states. Mary didn’t consider boxing at St. Alban’s Boarding Scho
ol to be adequate training for the wild reaches of Somalia, on a mission for which he was ill prepared should there be a sudden unplanned and adverse turn of events. Phillip, she thought, was an idiot and she had no clue why he would volunteer for such a mission, much less why he would actually go.
Neither did Phillip’s mistress, who glumly attended the funeral and sat at the back of the church. She introduced herself to Mary privately, apologized for the circumstances of their meeting and shared with Mary just how often Phillip had spoken of his love for his wife and two children. She hadn’t been the first mistress of Phillip Agee Outlander III; there had been others. But this mistress assured Mary that they meant nothing, just sex and that Mary had been his one true love.
If this mistress had sought to console Mary and assure her of something about which Mary had previously known nothing, she failed miserably to achieve that result. Stricken with grief and loss, with her own children to care for, Mary thanked her for her kindness. Mary believed the thoughts expressed by the woman were genuine and proceeded to cry for a week unabated, then for another week after that.
Among the many calls she received from friends, well-wishers, family and colleagues came one, out of the blue, from an old childhood friend with whom she had shared a unique and deeply meaningful friendship in bygone days: Edward St. James, still of the little-known Victoria Institute on Vancouver Island. They talked for hours and then hours more over the following weeks and months, until the healing had set in and the need to hear Edward’s voice had diminished. They never got together during her mourning; meeting in person wasn’t required. Mary Elizabeth McQueen, ‘Bethy’ as she was then known, didn’t have to be physically present with ‘Eddie’ St. James to feel his presence and remember what it was like to be seventeen again and madly, passionately in love for the first time.
He was the one who got away, the one she loved with all the passion of her teenage years and the only boy who preferred the warmth of her friendship and strength of her inquisitive mind to having sex behind the football stadium. Mary was a pretty and popular girl and Eddie was a physical specimen, something only she was allowed to know about him and then, only much later. Eddie was religious and shy, a nerd with grades almost equal to hers but an outsider to her life among the popular kids.
At night, when she was alone in bed, the kids asleep and a single candle flickering in the total darkness of her solitary room, she would think back to her junior year in high school, dating the field, varsity cheerleader and Honor Society poster girl, happy beyond belief, until one Spring day when everything changed for the worse.
That is how she met Eddie, though honestly, she had barely known he was even alive until then. That would change too.
Chapter 37
“Son, if you have a moment, I’d like to have a word with you. I have something important we need to discuss.” Edward’s father, Fred, rarely spoke to him in that tone, even when the boy was in trouble, which wasn’t often. Fred was proud of his boy, just now seventeen, though he didn’t mention this to Edward as often as he should have.
Edward had become athletic, still growing into a 6’1” frame, and with his swimming, ju-jitsu and weight training had become quite the physical specimen. But Fred was an academic and although physical fitness, he believed, was Godly, it didn’t replace the excellence of academic study. In this Fred could truly be proud, as his fit but geeky son excelled at his studies, just not in the Bible Studies his mother wished he would attend to more scrupulously.
But Fred had once been a seventeen-year-old high school student and he realized his son had a lot more on his mind than Psalms and Exodus. Fred had spent a good deal of his sophomore and junior years in High School pining for that pretty young girl who was now his wife. She was a vision, he recalled, and his son should have those visions too. After all, it was what God intended for his People. It was natural, and normal and, well, you’re only seventeen once.
Edward dutifully followed his father into his study and sat down beside his Dad in the two chairs normally reserved for guests in front of the big desk filled to capacity with books, paper and manuscripts Fred had little time to review. By this time in Edward’s life, Fred had achieved, through academic excellence and excellent political machinations, the one position he coveted, if covet was the right word for a deeply religious man. Fred had long desired – and finally become the Chairman of the Department of Mathematics at the University of Iowa.
Fred got up and closed the door behind him. Odd, there were no secrets in this household, save secrets about sex. Edward thought he might be in trouble for something, but he couldn’t imagine what.
“Son, do you remember Dr. Janie McQueen? You met Dr. McQueen and her husband Addison at a Christmas party here at the farm a few years ago.”
“Yeah, I think I do. She had her daughter with her, but I don’t remember her name. Cute girl.”
“Cute, yes. A sweet girl, excellent grades and in your class at Excelsior. Ring any bells?”
“Do you mean Bethy McQueen? That’s Dr. McQueen’s daughter? I certainly know who she is but can’t say I’ve ever talked to her. Why do you ask?”
“So, you don’t know her very well?”
“I don’t know her at all, Dad. I’m not really all that social, as you know, and she’s the opposite. Pretty, smart and popular. Varsity cheerleader as a junior. Not likely she’s going to be hanging out with a geeky nerd like me, if you catch my drift.”
“I do son, I do. But would you say you knew her well enough to have an opinion about her? Is she nice, not nice, difficult, you know anything like that?”
“I would say that we have had some advanced classes together and barely spoken if ever. She hangs out with the ‘smart kids’ crowd and doesn’t seem too stuck up or anything like that. More like she’s just super busy and doesn’t have a lot of time for BS. I’d say she was well liked but not universally. She’s way more popular and visible than me but that isn’t saying much. Why Dad? What’s this all about?”
“Well, that’s what I want to talk to you about. Seems something has come up and her mom, Janie, asked me for a favor. But more specifically, she is asking you for a favor. If you’re willing.”
“Anything if you say so Dad. But what can I possibly do?”
“The situation is like this. Mary Elizabeth, Bethy, came home last week from school a little late and a little banged up. Scratches on her face and clothing and hair a little messed up. Janie was concerned. She asked Mary Elizabeth about her appearance and Bethy said she had just gotten a little messy doing cheers out of uniform. But then at bedtime Bethy was crying and carrying on but still wouldn’t tell her Mom anything. Her Dad was quickly on the case too, but he got less out of his daughter than Janie, so they were completely confused. Janie says she and her daughter are close and talk about everything. But every day Bethy would come home, lock herself in her room and cry herself to sleep.
“At first Janie thought it might somehow involve a boyfriend but she didn’t think Bethy was dating anyone. No one she knew of anyhow but then Janie said she herself had dated guys in High School her parents hated, so keeping a secret wouldn’t be all that unusual. You know anything about this, son?”
“No, nothing. Like I said I hardly know her and she wouldn’t be telling me anything anyway. I’m sure she doesn’t even know I exist. Have you talked to her friends, like Jennie Palmer or any of the cheerleaders? They’re all pretty tight and probably know exactly what’s going on.”
“Yes, I was getting around to that. So, Janie called up a couple of Bethy’s friends and they all claimed ignorance. But this time Janie was sure they were lying and covering for Bethy. At first, she thought Bethy might be pregnant but that didn’t explain the scratches and such. Over the next couple of weeks, Bethy’s behavior began to abruptly change. She dropped out of cheerleading, stopped going to her campus clubs and became anxious and nervous. She was sullen and argumentative and, as Janie says, just not herself.”
/>
“What can I do?”
“There’s more and this part along with all the rest I’ve just told you needs to stay between us. We clear?”
“Sure Dad. Whatever you say.”
“So, one-night Janie got a call from one of Bethy’s friend’s mother, who asked to see her when she was able. Janie met the lady at a coffee shop who told her what was going on with Bethy but insisted on anonymity – for now.”
“What was it?” Edward asked.
“Seems there are a couple of kids, one on the football team, who had been waiting on Bethy as she walked home and had been harassing her. Sometimes physically, if you understand my meaning.”
“You mean touching her? Like that?”
“Yes, touching her. I’m ashamed to say that I can’t bring myself to describe what they did but it apparently got way out of control that first night she came home upset and crying.”
“Did she call the cops?”
“No?”
“Why not?”
“It’s complicated, son. Let’s just agree that she didn’t and wanted to forget about it and make it go away. Except it didn’t and she has been very deeply hurt and her parents are frantic. Bethy refuses to go to school because she refuses to walk to school or home.”
“Why doesn’t she walk with a friend? A girlfriend. Safety in numbers. Or drive.”
“True, she could, but she’s scared and afraid another girl won’t be any protection from these thugs. And she’s afraid at school too. Afraid of … well just afraid. What she really needs is a bodyguard, someone her own age she can rely on and with whom she can feel safe. The McQueen’s want to keep everything as normal for Bethy, you know, not attract any attention. That’s where you come in.”
“Me? What can I do?”
“You can walk her to school in the morning, keep an eye on her during the day and walk her home after school. That’s what you can do. That’s what I’m asking you to do. For me, as a favor.”
Discovery Page 88
