Before I Wake

by Dee Henderson

  “I’m going to head out that way and check in on their progress in the negotiations, then head home. Seriously, thanks for finding those handguns.” He looked over at Bruce. “I’ll repay you the cash you laid out to find them.”

  “This one is on us. Rae said we had to gift wrap at least one case for you,” Bruce replied.

  “Did she?” Nathan looked over at Rae to see her starting to blush. He smiled. “I’ll take gift wrapped cases anytime.”

  Bruce stacked together the pages they had dried out to this point into a somewhat neat pile on the bedspread, and then looked at Rae. “Promise me you won’t work until all hours on this.”

  “Just a little longer. I think there is more to tease out of the notes than it first appears. Peggy was orderly in her own way. I’ve just got to figure out how to think like her.”

  “I’ll come by the hotel and pick you up for church in the morning if you like,” Bruce offered. “We could do lunch afterwards and you can show me what you’ve figured out.”

  “I’d like that.”

  She walked with them to the hotel-room door. “Good night, guys.”

  * * *

  Nathan heard Rae’s room door shut as he walked with Bruce down to the elevators. “The notebook is an interesting twist.”

  “Very. At least Rae will have something to show Peggy’s parents on Monday. This closes down the last of the missing time window for Peggy’s Saturday evening.”

  Nathan nodded. “Peggy went from Andy’s, to Nella’s, then out to Joe Prescott’s place. She walked around a bit, probably twisted an ankle on that rough ground, lost her notebook, and came back to the hotel. She died.”

  “It’s the died part I don’t like.”

  Nathan grimaced. “I hear you. Listen, do you mind if I ride to church with you and Rae in the morning? I’m doing some back-door shuttling with this strike situation and I need to speak with Larry. I’d rather have an excuse, however lame, as my reason for being at your church in the morning rather than mine, given I’m going to have to hand off my Sunday school class of boys again.”

  “Come by and get me about seven. We’ll stop and pick up Rae and get breakfast together before services. Knowing Rae, she’ll have that notebook transcribed to a pad of paper by then.”

  “Thanks, Bruce. Seriously—I think you saved some lives today, locating those handguns. I owe you a big favor in return.”

  “I’ll find a reason to collect one day,” Bruce promised.

  29

  Snow was beginning to fall as Nathan pulled into the drive at Ford’s lakefront house late Saturday night. All the lights were on in the lower level of the house, spilling out to touch the snow-covered ground. He pulled on his coat and gloves as his breath crystallized in the cold air.

  His father walked down the porch steps to meet him. “How’s it going out here, Dad?”

  “They’re breaking up to catch a few hours of sleep, to let folks take their families to church in the morning, and they’ll reconvene at noon. Go on in. I think it will do them good to have a fresh face to talk with.”

  “From that quiet answer, I take it the day has been tough.”

  “The mood inside is still constructive. They broke for dinner and then went back into session to keep working. But there’s no deal and until there is, they all carry that weight.”

  “Can you run interference for another meeting out here tomorrow, or should I look at someplace in town for the guys to meet?” Nathan asked.

  “We’ll try to reassemble here again if we can avoid the reporters spotting where the negotiators are going. I hear Bruce found the handguns.”

  “All six,” Nathan confirmed. “They got dumped outside Harristown behind a bowling alley and an enterprising kid who is there every weekend found the box.”

  “That’s very good news.”

  “Beyond anything I could have hoped for,” Nathan agreed. He left his dad to the task of sweeping snow off the porch and he opened the door to step inside. Warmth met him and the smell of coffee. A dozen men were working around two long tables brought in and set up in the dining room. From the discarded pages across the tables it was obvious they had spent the last hours drafting and redrafting language.

  “I brought more food.”

  “Always welcome, Nathan. I think we’ve about died on Cheetos this last hour.”

  Adam, the chief union boss, got up from the table to come shake hands. “All quiet in town?”

  “We’re good,” Nathan reassured.

  “We’re going to pause discussions where they are for tonight. We’ll let guys go sleep a few hours, catch a shower, take their families to church. It will be easier to get the details right when we’re not quite so sleep deprived. We’ve made progress.”

  “Very good progress,” Zachary agreed on behalf of the management team. “I don’t suppose you snuck donuts into one of those sacks, did you? My wife is never going to allow them in the house again and it’s the one thing that I’ve been craving tonight.”

  Nathan smiled. “Dad mentioned it. Powdered-sugar-coated as well as glazed donut holes. I remember what these sessions get to be like.” He set down the sacks to locate the boxes.

  “Good man, your dad.”

  “Who has draft five on overtime?”

  “Here it is.”

  The men around the table were sorting out layers of papers to make sure they had the working copies together.

  “Send the working copies with your guy, Adam, if you think you can get a copier to collate sets for us to work from tomorrow,” Zachary suggested.

  “Rich?”

  “I can get sets made,” he confirmed. “Do you want the Post-it notes duplicated? I can slap them on pieces of paper to get them to copy.”

  “Sure, if you can figure out a way to safely mess with them.”

  Rich began taking the Post-it notes down from the dining-room wall.

  Zachary tugged on his coat and then picked up a handful of the donut holes. “I need some air. Step outside with me, Nathan. Tell me more about what’s been going on in town today.”

  Nathan got the silent message; he followed his friend out through the patio doors.

  Nathan settled at the table on the back patio, watching as the guys walked around inside to stretch and find something to eat. There hadn’t been signs of anger in the group, or of shouting matches creating splits, or of any of the other group dynamics that could so easily flare under this kind of pressure. He looked over at his friend, aware the upbeat words by both Adam and Zachary in front of the group hadn’t matched the quiet look of the two men between themselves.

  “Talk to me, Zachary. What’s going on?”

  His friend looked beat-up exhausted after the marathon day of talks. “We’re not going to get a deal.”

  It was said so simply and directly that Nathan took a moment to absorb the quiet words. “You can’t not get a deal, Zach.”

  His friend slipped off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “It’s not Adam. He and I have hammered out good solid ideas to bridge where we are at on the contract language. He’s even offered some concessions we hadn’t thought about that will improve the overall training costs for new hires. We’re probably another afternoon away from having working language hammered out on all the points still open.”

  “But—”

  “I’m working in a vacuum of dead air and Adam knows that. The tile plant is a good business. But it’s just like every other manufacturing business in the world; it has to keep shifting under the currents of what is going on worldwide. Tile prices are falling year after year. The business is also capital intensive, and we don’t compete well against divisions which are more paper driven and less raw materials. Corporate may simply see the write-downs for closing the plant as worth the loss of the small profit line in future years.”

  “There’s nothing you can do?”

  “I’m flying to headquarters on Monday to make sure they really understand just how good a deal has been structured w
ith this contract, and to lay out again the profit projections for the plant through the life of this deal. The thing is, even if the plant went to no health-care costs at all—it’s not the health-care issue that will make or break this decision. I can’t even tell if it’s more than a passing factor when it really comes down to it.”

  “What is?”

  “Does corporate want to be a bread-and-butter company that makes things, or does it want to be a nonmanufacturing enterprise? That’s where we are at.”

  Zachary sighed. “Maybe it’s tired pessimism talking right now. Monday may well bring a presentation that corporate looks at and says good, we like that predictable profit number, and no, we don’t envision investing much capital in plant expansion, so stretch your budget to cover the capital needs. That kind of answer management can deal with. It’s what we got three years ago when the last union contract was negotiated. We’ve just not been getting the same clear answers this time. If corporate says no to this draft contract, it won’t be because of language in one or two paragraphs; it will be because they don’t want to be in the tile business.”

  “Worst case. Are we talking a shutdown decision this week?”

  “By Wednesday we should have a blessing to do this deal and the plant opens again with union employees, or we’ll have found out the strikebreakers are turning into the teardown crew that is going to gut the plant. I wish I knew what to tell you to prepare for. I wish I knew what Adam could tell his guys that would help with the pain of waiting. This is hurting friends, Nathan. But as lead negotiator for management I can’t tell you tonight if the plant is open or closed a week from now. I honestly don’t know which way this is going to break at the end.”

  “I appreciate the candor.”

  “Would you do me a favor and look again at the home-security situation for Adam’s guys and mine? This pressure point isn’t going to remain quiet for much longer.”

  “We’ll do everything we can to keep tempers in the range of words and not violence,” Nathan promised. “I’ve already talked to Luke Granger over in Brentwood about having some of his men come help us out if needed.”

  “I appreciate that. I hope it doesn’t become necessary, but I worry.”

  “You’re not alone in that.”

  * * *

  Nathan left the lakeside home shortly after midnight. The ground was shifting under him and this town.

  Jesus, does a prayer for work count? This town needs jobs to survive so guys can support their families. I don’t know how else to ask this. This town needs a deal; I need a deal.

  A week ago this had been a strike with a disagreement around particular points proposed in the new contract. In a week it had changed to become the fate of the tile plant. Nathan didn’t know how to grasp how fast life had moved under him.

  A car passed him in the opposite lane, doing well over the speed limit. A red car. A Porsche.

  Nathan reversed directions, punched on lights, and gave pursuit, anger pushing his foot down on the gas.

  He pushed up his speed and eventually caught up. He settled in behind his grandfather and when the lights didn’t do the job, touched the sirens for a brief warning.

  His grandfather touched his brakes and slowed, then turned on blinkers and eventually pulled off onto a side road and stopped.

  Nathan got out of the squad car and looked up at the sky. His patience was exhausted. He dug out the ticket book and his flashlight and slammed the squad-car door closed. He walked toward the Porsche.

  Henry lowered the driver’s-side window.

  Nathan shone his flashlight into the car, half expecting to see someone with his grandfather. He exploded. “Open liquor in the car? Are you crazy, Henry?”

  His grandfather opened the car door so abruptly it hit Nathan in the gut. “Back up, boy. And it’s not liquor.”

  Backing up was necessary to keep from falling; any other civilian pulling that move and Nathan would have already put them on the ground.

  Clear voice, steady movements, nothing on his grandfather’s breath catching his attention—most definitely not a man who was drunk. It didn’t change the anger Nathan felt at the man for speeding at midnight. “Henry, you’ll explain this or I’m arresting you.”

  “If you’re like this with every stop you make, you’re going to be getting yourself fired.”

  “Answers, Henry. Now.” Nathan shifted the flashlight to the side to not be in his grandfather’s eyes even as he repeated the warning. “What’s in the open bottle?”

  “Soda.”

  “No label?”

  “My own brand,” Henry retorted. His grandfather scowled at him. “You want a taste to believe me then?”

  Nathan shifted on his feet. “No. And I apologize for the assumption it was liquor. But you will explain what is going on. This speeding tonight. The cash to buy this car. I’m tired of spending my time worrying about you when I’ve got other things to be worrying me more.”

  “And if I said it was none of your business, or any business of that Bruce Chapel fellow you’ve got following me all over the place?”

  Nathan refused to go there. “We’re past that point. Either you start talking, or I’m going to arrest you for speeding every time you so much as go a mile over the limit, and then I’m going to start working on getting that license revoked. I’ve had it with the mysteries around this town.”

  “You don’t have to get testy about it.”

  “Henry—”

  “Things aren’t going well out at the negotiations.”

  “No. They are not.”

  “I was taking a batch of the sodas out to the guys to sample. This batch is pretty decent.”

  Nathan tried to shift gears and listen to what his grandfather was saying, even as he dodged the questions Nathan wanted to hear answered. “You sure you’re not just going to poison them with another experimental brew?”

  Henry leaned back against his car and crossed his arms across his chest. He smiled. “You have to admit, the lemonade wasn’t so bad until it gave folks the runs.”

  “Everyone who sampled it spent the next day groaning about the lemon pits growing in their guts. Soda this time?”

  “It’s not such a far-out notion. Big Joe’s Soda—it’s got a pretty good kick without much sugar in it.”

  Big Joe’s Soda—Joe Prescott and his grandfather had been involved in something if this was how Henry was honoring his friend after death. Nathan sighed and leaned against the car beside his grandfather. “I’m declaring myself off duty. It’s been a month out of a horror novel, Henry. I don’t need more of it coming from family right now. Please, explain it all. What are you up to? And where’s the money coming from?”

  “We’re working on some new business ideas, Bob Teal and I. This town needs something better than the tile plant to depend on. Your grandmother thought it was a foolish notion, but soda’s got potential.”

  “You’re going into the beverage business?”

  “We worked on a glue formulation first, but it didn’t pan out. We tried a formulation of mud—you know the kind major league baseball rubs on the balls before games—there was some interest among the T-ball leagues to come up to professional standards with their baseball preparations, but it didn’t fly. Now we’re experimenting a bit with soft drinks. There is low overhead costs in soft drinks—just soda water and some flavorings. It’s more the bottling and shipping costs that make a business profitable or not.”

  “That’s what you’ve been working on out at your place, causing all those odd sounds late at night from the woods?”

  Henry frowned at him. “Don’t go claiming it’s a big secret that I’ve got a workshop back there in the timber. You helped haul the ceiling joists out there with your dad. Your grandmother refused to let me pour concrete on good tillable land, and she wasn’t going to have a metal-sided building larger than the house sitting up near the road being an eyesore.”

  “I was under the impression you were still using that build
ing to store farm equipment.”

  “You know I haven’t driven a tractor in close to a decade. The land’s been tenant farmed for years. All I do is hassle Jim about how many weeds he’s got growing in the beans.”

  Nathan had indeed heard a few of those friendly debates between the two men over the last years.

  “Bob’s been doing the reading and the studying, and I’ve been doing the experimenting and the trying out of his ideas. Joe was helping us out, back in the days he was around. His idea of making fishing lures turned out to be a mighty nice idea. He had the old wood-press equipment from his father still around his place, and we modified it a bit. They made some real fast-moving bass shimmies. If the treble hook piece of it wasn’t so hard for old hands to tie off, we would have done more with that business than we did. We handed that business idea over to Vernon and he’s been making a nice side business out of the lures, selling them at the hardware store.”

  “You’ve been busy. I didn’t know.”

  Henry shrugged. “I’m old enough I’m bored, and this town needs workable ideas. There’s no reason I can’t be trying to come up with solutions.”

  “I’m not disagreeing. But where’s the funding for this experimenting coming from?”

  “Now don’t go disapproving on me. I don’t approve of what Joe did, killing himself. But he left a chunk of cash for Bob and me to use for the town’s good and we’re doing it the best we know how. He didn’t have a grandson to leave it to any longer.”

  “You could have said something.”

  “And listen to the townsfolk comment on every new idea Bob and I decide to explore? Or have to put up with the outrage of folks about Joe being so deliberate about what he did in preparations before he killed himself?

  “I’m too old to put up with what this entire town thinks. Joe didn’t give us any hint of what he was planning; you know we would have sat on him to knock that stupid idea out of his head, but we aren’t disrespecting his memory and his final wishes.”

  “I thought you were mixed up in something illegal.”

  “Me?” Henry snorted. “Your grandmother would come out of the grave and drag me down with her. About the only law I’ve broken lately is speed limits and that’s just a heavy foot in a very nice car.”