by Glenna Mason
Elizabeth hoped that Claire would come quickly, as she had no intention of touching anything until she had explicit instructions by Claire herself about what was on and what was off limits. Waiting, Elizabeth glanced around the cluttered, but comfortable space. Books of varying sizes and subjects were stacked beside chairs; papers filled the chair seats; signed photos of Jimmy Joyce with various dignitaries (Elizabeth recognized a former Prime Minister of England and several Irish and British writers plus three actors, mostly stage luminaries) decorated the walls, more atilt than straight. She turned her attention to the massive gentleman's desk, which was open and displayed papers and letters in disarray, as well as some that were carefully pigeon-holed. Next she noticed a glass fronted bookcase with elegantly bound copies of prominent twentieth century authors, which appeared from their condition both well-loved and oft-read. Finally she saw the library table which held an inauspicious looking, probably years old, computer and a printer and several reams of computer paper. Jimmy Joyce mainly used his computer for college exams and classroom assignments. And on the library table stood a large ashtray with an American eagle design, a pipe and even some ashes in it. On the chair behind, a tweed jacket had been thrown casually over the back, the leather patches on its elbows clearly evident.
A real person with a real life! A dear friend gone forever! Elizabeth suddenly crashed.
“I can't stay here!” she said aloud. She turned to escape. Just at that moment, as if decreed by some far flung fate, Claire appeared in the doorway, as quietly, and just about as welcome, as a cat before he pounced on his unsuspecting prey.
”Thank you for coming, Elizabeth,” Claire said quickly, seeming to sense the tension exuding from Elizabeth.
Requiring herself to recover and act presentable, Elizabeth responded, “You are welcome, Claire. I must say that I am at a loss as to where to begin.”
“Most of this,” Claire stated, sweeping her hand around the room, as if brushing away a man's existence, “is irrelevant. I want you to just concentrate on Jimmy Joyce's computer investigation and its progress.”
“Yes.”
Claire crossed the room to the computer and with obvious skill hit a few keys, released a disk and handed it to Elizabeth.
“This should have the relevant links and passwords that you will need,” Claire said.
“So bizarre that today so much can depend on something so small and so seemingly fragile,” Elizabeth observed awkwardly, letting the disk lay delicately on her open palm.
“Yes.”
“Please, Claire, I know you have company in every room. Go back to your guests. I will look into this at my own house,” Elizabeth said, tapping the disk lightly on her hand. “I will do my best, and I will report back to you as soon as I have exhausted my limited resources.”
Claire nodded, turned and disappeared from the room almost as stealthily as she had entered it. “Thank God that is over.” Elizabeth sighed. “I can go home now.”
A few minutes later Elizabeth was fighting with her umbrella, which was blown almost inside out by the strong March wind blasting across Claire's front porch. She finally abandoned the effort and pulled the raincoat up over her head and raced down the long driveway to her car. It took a couple of minutes to find the car keys hiding in the bottom of her oversized purse. Elizabeth was soaked to the skin by the time she slid onto the leather seats.
Elizabeth decided to take the long way home, that is, by way of Maria's. “I'll just run over and see if Maria needs any help for the wake tomorrow,” Elizabeth concluded, as she turned left onto Pope Road, forlorn and weary. Elizabeth was fully aware of her own real ulterior motives; she was desperately in need of a little friendly love right now.
Maria was, as usual, Sir William's hostess, this time for the wake he was hosting after Jimmy Joyce's funeral on Monday. This Monday would be a day of mourning in most of central Kentucky. EKU was closed for classes so that the administration, the faculty and the students could attend the funeral and wake. Flags would fly at half-mast at the campus and at the state capitol in Frankfort. The governor and the lieutenant governor and many government personnel, as well as state legislators would be at the funeral and probably at Sir William's to help celebrate the life of a great Kentuckian.
Elizabeth was not surprised to find Maria in her perfectly pristine office (“What a contrast to the one I just left” was Elizabeth's immediate thought), making her last minute adjustments to her already perfect list for tomorrow's festivities.
Elizabeth, her hair dripping and her shoes squishy, but assured of a warm welcome, eased quietly into Maria's study unannounced. Looking around, she found the contrast to the office at the Carstairs astounding. Maria had her bookshelves carefully assorted by topic, the pictures aligned with precision, and the chairs available for sitting with no exceptions.
Maria glanced her way and arose in greeting, saying with sincere enthusiasm, “Lizzy, thank goodness you are here.” Taking a closer look, Maria added with concern, “But, Lizzy, you are so—well—wet.”
“Oops, “ Elizabeth said, noticing that she was standing in a small pool of her own making, leaving a splotch of water on the hardwood floor. “I'm sorry, Maria,” Elizabeth apologized, as she tried to wipe it up with the soles of her offending shoes.
“Lizzy, you’ll be in bed for a week. Come!” Maria said. Soon her considerate and caring friend had Elizabeth in a soft terry cloth robe and house slippers, with a turbaned towel wrapped around her head, sitting in front of a small parlor fire.
“Now isn't that better?” Maria mothered, as she pulled the bell cord.
“Decidedly.”
When the maid appeared, Maria requested, “Carol, we need two steaming pots of cook's favorite tea with some cream and lemons and—oh—some honey too please.”
“Yes, Mrs. Webb.”
Soon Elizabeth, now warm, dry and comfortably situated on a cozy chintz sofa, was sipping tea, laced with honey, and relaxing in the undemanding company of her ethereally serene next door neighbor. A calm enveloped Elizabeth. The constriction in her chest lessened. The imaginary weight borne across her shoulders disintegrated.
“Hmmm,” Elizabeth eventually said. “I've been to Claire's.”
“I'm glad you are here now,” was the simple, telling response.
“I'm glad too,” Elizabeth said. The companionable quietude she shared with Maria brought Elizabeth solace, a peace in direct contravention of the inexorable low engendered by a Claire Evans Carstairs in her life.
Elizabeth envisioned that life was indeed a series of contradictions and extremes. For her today: a nadir of shadowy uncertainty and a zenith of attentive contentment.
Instinctively recognizing that her friend was revived, Maria offered, “Daddy hasn't given any details of his Saturday sojourn.” She paused. “He won't, you know. For him the whole affair is passé; he did his part. It is someone else's problem now. He is just grateful to have his mare and foal back safe and sound.”
“Your dad is a man of extraordinary resilience. I wish I had a tenth of it.”
“He does invite us to make our final report tomorrow, while we are all together at Stantonfield. He says that with all the energy and effort expended on his behalf by all his Pope Road neighbors, he owes everyone at least one last hurrah.” Maria remembered sadly, “The report was supposed to be at Jimmy Joyce's, of course.”
“I'm glad! It will be gratifying to hear what everyone has to report. But I agree with Sir William that the time for amateurs is probably past.”
*****
However, Elizabeth and Sir William were both wrong on that account. The amateur sleuths, the Carels and the Dodds, drawings in hand, spent the same Saturday morning that Sir William was driving South on I-75 traversing the multi-block Richmond By-Pass between the EKU campus and the expressway. They carried their sketches and left dozens of copies at various business locations along the way on bulletin boards and posted in front windows.
They decided that
it would be most effective to do their inquiries between the hours of seven and eight-thirty, the presumptive hours of the theft. They enthusiastically moved down the street, having fun, secure in the knowledge that they were covering new ground. The police, not overly impressed for some reason with either sketch, had not used them in their investigations. The customers at the delightful coffee pot shaped restaurant, The Coffee Pot, were elated to pass the sketches around and comment on them.
No one recognized the “dude” with or without his goggles, but the other “codger” looked vaguely familiar to several of the local coffee drinkers, who came here every Saturday morning to “shoot the breeze” and catch up on each other’s week, rain, shine or snow. Thanking everyone and promising to stop by again some Saturday soon, the two couples posted their sketches at the Coffee Pot and returned home.
However, Sunday morning Jewell Dodd and Carol Carel decided to have their morning coffee at the Coffee Pot. They were again promoting their sketches when, bingo, a regular customer gave the renderings a second look-see and had an epiphany.
“I've never seen the guy in the goggles, unless he was in Bridget Jones Diary, but the scruffy lookin' one is out on the By-Pass entrance to the expressway fairly often with one of those cardboard signs, asking for work.”
“Hey, you're right, Jeff. It's that Adkins guy—no Akins—from Akins Holler, over off Irvine Road.”
“Betcha right, Al. Akins is the name. Looks for work on the expressway. Hey, it appears he might have found it.”
“Sure 'nuff does, in the hokey pokey too, for a few years of hard labor.” The two friends guffawed loudly with great good cheer.
Excited the girls immediately dialed Lt. Davenport and left him the name on his voice mail.
High fives all around! And a free round of coffee on the house. More high fives!
*****
The suspect was arrested and booked, charged with assault and battery against Clancey, who on Monday identified him in a lineup. Mr. Akins was on his way to the penitentiary, or so it seemed. He had no money for bail, which was set at five thousand dollars, and so he currently resided in jail.
Nonetheless Akins turned out to be a virtual dead-end, since he was hired on the ramp on Friday for the job on Saturday, a one deal job—loading two horses.
“Yes,” he admitted. “I popped the little guy. The guv, who hired me, told me not to hurt 'em, so I didn't. He told me just to stall 'em from followin' us, so I hit 'em in the head kinda gentle like. I got two hundred smackers for job. No, siree, I didn't have no clue I wuz stealin' Sir. William's horses. You think I'd do that for a measly two hundred bucks. No way, man.
“And, no, I don't got no clue who the guv wuz. I met ‘em at the expressway, didn't I? You think he wuz gonna give me his callin' card.”
When confronted with the cigarette, which confirmed by DNA his being in Field Thirteen, Akins finalized his status as a dead end by testifying, “We got off at the Berea exit because he said he wanted a coffee. He gave me two hundred plus five bucks for the coffee and sent me in. He claimed he wanted lots of sugar and cream, so it bein' busy and all and havin' all the stuff to put in it took a goodly while. He'd pulled the van around to the exit side, and when I come out, he wuz long gone.
“No, I didn't see which way he went. I had a time gettin' back. I had to hitch and no one wants to pick you up these days. But I had two coffees.
“And Sir William can forgit about gittin his two hundred back. I already spent it.”
The Pope Road conspiracy was not really any closer to being actually solved, but the couples did have fun telling about their adventure at Sir William's wrap up. They got accolades for their assiduity and more high fives, as well as some very expensive French champagne with which to toast themselves.
Sir William briefly thanked everyone and remarked, “I advise that we let the police take over from here. You have done their work long enough. You, my dear friends, have discovered all the clues which have come to the forefront. I am proud of each and every one of you. I’m proud to call you my friends!”
Elizabeth and Tish exchanged winks. They knew they were not retiring, not yet.
“Saturday, Lizzy?”
“Saturday, Tish.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
By Monday evening Elizabeth was totally spent, tomorrow she would once again be in front of a classroom and expected to teach. It seemed an eternity, not a few short days, since Elizabeth had failed to show up for her own lecture. One small week in which Elizabeth's world had upturned. She was now having a hard time just getting her mind around the term, “normal routine.” And for the first time literally in a life centered on routine and work ethic, Elizabeth wasn't even sure that she wanted to.
“What is wrong with you, Elizabeth Francine?” Elizabeth asked herself sternly, trying to jerk herself into at least low gear. She headed for her small office, located in an alcove in her bedroom, determined to prepare for Tuesday's classes. Elizabeth found the most uncomfortable, straight-backed chair in her room and seated herself on it behind her desk and computer. Nevertheless, Elizabeth's mind wandered over the past week; visions of death and assault and theft, dispiriting and persistent, interrupted her every effort at concentration. It seemed hopeless.
“Let's see. What do I teach?” Elizabeth inquired, only half-jokingly. Her Wednesday schedule popped up on the computer screen. “Oh, good, I am taking those unruly freshmen to the stacks to give them a lesson in what an actual book looks and feels like when doing research. Yea! That's an easy one—one problem solved— no lecture needed for that class on Wednesday. But Tuesday I need you!” She clicked again and her Tuesday schedule duly appeared. “Good, again, only my senior tutorials and my favorite class, Shakespeare in Love. Let's see I had decided to compare the headstrong lovers of Much Ado About Nothing with the intractable lovers of Pride and Prejudice. What a splendid idea, Lizzy. I am still game for that one.” Suddenly with a renewed energy for that particular lesson, Elizabeth began outlining her introductory lecture on two of her favorite literary couples.
It was serendipitous that Elizabeth had already envisioned this approach to Ben and Bea because it worked magically. Within minutes, Elizabeth Bennet, restored to her pre-Saturday-of-the-theft self, delved happily into the spirited verbal contests of the young fictional couples, leaving behind, for now at least, the deadening machinations of real life crime and punishment.
*****
Classes over for Tuesday, Elizabeth headed home to begin an examination of Jimmy Joyce's archival data on the computer, do her barn workouts and prepare for Wednesday's classes. She decided that for her continued sanity, she would split her Jimmy Joyce analysis, half pre-barn/half post-barn. A good hard ride on Gypsy would help blow the blues from her brain and give her the pep to continue later.
Hence at four, Elizabeth settled down for one hour on the computer. Elizabeth slid the disk into the appropriate slot, and she was in the virtual world of Jimmy Joyce's computer. She and Jimmy Joyce had never had any reason to e-mail each other, being across the hall at campus and across the street at home, so Elizabeth was startled, but not nonplussed to see that his user name was “Stream of Consciousness.”
But naturally it would be, wouldn't it? James Joyce was the visionary leader of stream of consciousness literature, and James Joyce Carstairs was one of the leading authorities on Joyce. Would his user name give a casual blogger any idea who Jimmy Joyce really was? Would that knowledge have put him in danger? Elizabeth assumed a lottery ticket had better odds.
Elizabeth was ambivalent about the idea of murder anyway. The web name was filed in the back of her suspicious mind, several levels below the inexplicable tire tracks that never tried to regain the pavement, as they made a beeline for her friend. Together the pair provided provocative conundrums, which would hopefully be solved or explained away at some future date.
Even though assuming she was about to waste her time, Elizabeth began to dig through the week of e-mails, beginning th
e Saturday of the kidnappings and continuing through Sunday, when she officially received the assignment.
Elizabeth scanned through the obvious solicitations for signatures on petitions or donations to causes. She saved them for Claire and moved on.
So soon she was down to approximately fifty e-mails, having reduced the number by about three hundred. These remaining e-mails, some read and saved and some still unread, provided Elizabeth with the most plausible source of potential avenues of information.
Elizabeth noticed immediately that there were several communiques with the user name—Mickey's Mine. The catchy name, as well as the frequency of the entries, attracted Elizabeth's curiosity, so she opened the most current entry, an early Sunday morning message.
The author was apparently quite irate at “Stream of Consciousness,” saying, “I have you figured out in no uncertain terms by now. You are one of those bloggers who just loves to play cat and mouse with your fellow e-mailers. Congrats! I got caught in your trap. You set up a Thursday confab with me and here it is Sunday and not a word of explanation as to why you did not show up or even why you have not left an explanation for not showing up. This is my last attempt to communicate with you, you blankety blank. Fill In your own curse words; they will not top mine.”
Elizabeth quickly scrolled up to the Saturday posting by Mickey's Mine. The message was just as furious. “Where were you Thursday? Did someone run you off the road or something? I thought we were cohorts trying to solve a crime and you failed to do your part.”
The “run you off the road” caught Elizabeth’s immediate attention. “Wow!” she said.
Elizabeth raced up to Friday's message. “I did what I was supposed to do. I arrived at the hotel bar at five-thirty with my rose and all. Six o’clock and still no Stream of Consciousness. I waited another half hour just in case you were caught behind a wreck or some other accidental delay. There I was sitting around for an hour, looking dumb, wearing a rose in that dark bar. I am not from Lexington, as you know, and so it was a real imposition on me and my family for me to be out so long, especially for no reason. Well, when we meet up, Mr. Stream of Consciousness, you'll be Mr. Unconsciousness because I am going to bop you in the nose a good one.”
