The Next Cool Place

by Dave Balcom

  Cabela’s, where I’m an active customer, sends me a bunch of catalogs a year. I shop on-line. I have no idea how much they’ve invested in making my on-line shopping so effective, but whatever it is, they obviously don’t believe in it – otherwise why would they continue to subsidize the USPS with their incessant mailings?

  On the other hand, I thought, printers have to live, too.

  After putting the bills in the “to pay” slot of my organizer, I opened the letter from Pendleton.

  Inside there were several blank sheets of paper from a notebook. When I pulled them out of the envelope, a small crystalline object fell out on the counter.

  I stared at it, feeling confused and concerned in one huge lump that lodged in my throat. It was an oblong object, half an inch or so long, the cross section would resemble a football, less than an eighth of an inch wide. It gleamed up at me in the kitchen light.

  Suddenly, with a bolt of recognition, I knew what it was.

  I staggered back into a chair just as Jan walked in from the porch. She saw the look of horror and recognition that drained the color from my face. She heard my breathing go shallow.

  “What is it? Jim, are you all right? Is it your heart?”

  I shook my head. “More like my soul.” I was recovering, concentrating on my breathing, re-establishing my center. I shook myself, and then met her eyes, unwanted tears blurring my vision.

  She asked again, “What’s the matter?”

  I reached out and pushed the object a bit with my finger.

  “What’s that?”

  “Punch.” The name came out as if I’d choked.

  “Punch?”

  I nodded, “It’s the computer ID tracking chip from Punch’s neck. Somebody wants me to know that he won’t be coming home.”

  30

  “Oh, Jim,” she said, putting her hands on both sides of my face, she pulled me into her, hugging me, rocking to and fro, like my mother had done so long ago. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.”

  I rested there, in the comfort of her and felt my sorrow harden into anger. I checked my center, and recaptured my posture, breathing, and control. I’m not used to anger and know that while it can be a vital tool, it can also control a person and become a liability, but I was comfortable with this: My anger was real, but as if it were on a back burner, nowhere near in control but more than ready to be put to use.

  She pushed my face away from her chest, “It’s time you tell me who’s doing this.”

  So I told her everything I could. All the details I had stored up. I told her everything but the one thing that would make sense of any of this.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t have a clue. Even if his business partners murdered Mickey, which I now consider probable, there’s nothing we’re finding that leads to a suspect, or even proof that a murder has actually been committed.

  “I keep wondering, ‘What are they afraid of?’”

  At 11 that night, we had just gone off to our beds, when the house phone and Jan’s cell went off at almost the same instant. I took the phone, and it was Julie Rathers. Jan had Ellen McGee on the other line.

  After a few seconds, I gave Julie to Jan and watched the blood drain out of her face. Then her shoulders sagged, followed by her knees. It was like watching her deflate, and I caught her just before she collapsed on the floor.

  “Julie!” I yelled into the phone, “Wait a second, Jan’s fainted.” I carried Jan to the couch, and made sure she was coming around before I picked up the phone. “Tell me.”

  Julie reported Patty Patterson, the Record’s reporter, had been severely beaten earlier in the evening. She had been found, left for dead, in the parking lot behind the Copper Kettle. She had been air lifted to intensive care in Blodgett Hospital in Grand Rapids. The doctors wouldn’t put odds on her survival. They had already removed her spleen, but the internal bleeding had not stopped yet.

  It was clear Julie was on the tenuous end of her psychological rope. By the time she had finished telling me; Jan was reaching for the phone. While they talked, I went to my computer and started looking at travel options to Grand Rapids.

  I called Albright on my cell.

  “Hell of a time to be calling.”

  “I need a favor.”

  “Name it. Tomorrow I close on that mountain ranch. I owe you a hell of a debt.”

  Albright owned a plane, an essential tool in managing or selling vast areas of ranch land. “Your plane in Pendleton?”

  “Of course.”

  “I need a flight to Portland in time to meet a commercial flight at six-twenty a.m. It’s an emergency.”

  “Be at the hangar, Pendleton Aviation gate two, by three a.m., we’ll fly into Gresham. I’ll have a car waiting for us.”

  Stand up guy. No questions asked.

  I delivered Jan to the hangar 15 minutes early. Albright was readying the airplane, and I introduced them and told the Cliff Notes version before we bundled her into the airplane.

  I leaned into her face. “You’re in G. R., you call me, you hear? Here’s your itinerary into and out of Chicago. Don’t lose this. It’s unusual to book flights this tight, so you may need it.”

  It was like talking to someone wounded, but I knew she was tracking me because her eyes never left mine.

  “Thanks. I’ll be back.”

  “That’s all I wanted to hear, kiddo. Go take care of Patty and your flock. I’ll listen for you.”

  Randall called out to me, “Jim, I have clearance. We’re rollin’.”

  “Thanks, Randall!” I yelled as I closed the door to the plane, checked that it was latched and backed away.

  It taxied out of sight, just its port and starboard lights blinking to tell me all was well.

  My white heat was burning, and a thought burst into my brain, “Mickey, what did you do?”

  I don’t know why that thought hit me, but instantly, I remembered his quip, “You remember, you always have my number.”

  I jogged to the truck and headed home.

  31

  Back home I went directly to the attic and started pulling out boxes of Christmas stuff.

  The elementary school teacher never had enough seasonal decorations. While February passed for most of us with little fanfare, there were cupids and hearts aplenty in the February box.

  The Christmas boxes took up one whole side of the storage area.

  Living alone, I had become used to putting up a minimum of holiday decorations. The first year after Sandy died, when I had put up no decorations, the few friends who dropped by started whispering that I was in serious need of psychological help.

  After that, I put up a wreath. Sent out Christmas cards and set up the crèche on the mantle of the fireplace I never lit.

  As the New Year dawned, I put all the cards I had received into a bundle, tied them up and stowed them with the decorations. The next year, I retrieved that box, put up the few decorations, then checked off the cards I’d received against my address list. It was something Sandy had done for years, and I just copied the act.

  As I opened the bundle, the first thing that tumbled out on the table was an envelope from Mickey. It was unopened. I had just checked the return address, and I remembered updating my mail merge data base with his Mineral Valley post office box.

  I sat down and opened the card.

  “Dear Jim,

  “Another year, another Merry Christmas season is rapidly approaching. I wish you were here.” His familiar school boy scrawl seemed worse than I’d seen it on other cards.

  “I’m a little lit up tonight, so I hope you can read my handwriting.

  “Christmas this year is not as happy as I thought it would be last year. I think I’ve finally captured what I was wishing for, and you’ll recall you often warned me against that… ha ha … well you were probably right again.

  “My dream of building Penny Point has run up against some real opposition, both in the Mineral Valley community and in my own company.

/>   “Two years ago, you’ll recall, I married Charlotte Davis, “Miss Charlotte, 1974.” I told you about that in a letter, if you remember. You never answered that letter, by the way.” I studied that line for a minute, and then continued.

  “Anyway, seems Charlotte had some friends in the real estate development business, and I brought them in on Penny Point. They had the resources, organization and money to make my dream come true.

  “Problem is, I don’t think they want to build Penny Point, but they don’t want to tell me why. It’s really strange, and I feel like a Lone Ranger in my own house. I don’t have anyone to talk to about this, and when that happens, I always think of the great talks we used to have.

  “Jim, nobody has ever been as good at asking questions as you, and I think that asking the right questions, not having all the answers, is the key to success. I wish you would help me with the questions.

  “I don’t know where this is going to end up, but I hope you’ll give me a call at 232-293-6555, and we can talk.

  “Remember, you have that number I gave you in that letter about Miss Charlotte, and if something should happen to me, that number would answer a lot of questions.

  “Call me, please.

  “Your friend, Mickey.”

  I sat there for a few minutes, wondering at his note. There seemed to me to be an air of desperation to it. He had been reaching out to me. It was post marked November 12 from Traverse City.

  Then I went to another box in the attic, something I had dreaded since I put it up there some six years before.

  This was a box with all kinds of things from Sandy’s life that I couldn’t send to Good Will or I didn’t think appropriate yet to hand on to Sara.

  There was her wedding dress, for example. I knew that opening that box was going to be painful, but I also knew there was another bundle of cards I had put there and forgotten.

  Mickey’s unopened card was in the middle of the stack. I carefully and gently put everything back in the box, stopping a couple of times as the touch and smell of something triggered a fond memory.

  The pain burst like little capsules of anguish. Tears trickled down my cheeks without a sob, just welling up in my eye lids and draining down to drip off my chin.

  I didn’t even bother to wipe them away. I just kept going through the process of putting it all back in storage, as if I could just seal away the pain and emptiness.

  I took Mickey’s card down stairs, thinking I had finally found what the intruders were afraid of.

  “Dear Jim,

  “I hope this finds you and yours healthy and happy on the verge of the new millennium. I keep hoping you’ll call me so we can put our friendship back together. I know that you’ve never forgiven me for how I lost Kathy, but I wish you could.

  “I’ve worked hard since those days to make up for that twisted time. I think you’d still like me, but I’ve changed.

  “I’ve been married now for the third time, this time, and you’ll laugh at this, to Miss Charlotte 1974; remember that story?

  “She’s always been the one for me, and suddenly she just popped up in my life. I tried to stay true to Ginny, but I couldn’t put Charlotte out of my mind.

  “I know you won’t believe this, but I’m really quite rich now. I have lots of business interests, but my passion is a luxury housing development near Mineral Valley, on Copper Creek. I recall that you fished all that area as a kid.

  “As I became involved in this, with millions at risk, I realize that of all the people I’ve known in my life, you and Sandy are the only ones I trust without question. Weird, huh?

  “Anyway, thinking about this and other stuff, I decided that some day you might be curious about me and how I’m doing. Nobody ever asked questions like you, partner. That was always your best thing, I think.

  “And then I thought how you’ve always had my number, so I thought I’d give it to you formally. If you’re ever curious about my life, you can answer a lot of questions with the number: 400035-396-006-01 – ha ha, gottcha! Maybe the mystery of it will bring you back into my life. I hope to hear from you soon.

  “Still your friend, Mickey.”

  The envelope bore the postmark. from Lansing August 23, two days before Sandy died. It had hit my mail along with all the sympathy cards, but he hadn’t even known I was suffering.

  I returned to the number. It didn’t match up with any number I’d ever seen before.

  The phone rang and I saw it was just after noon.

  Jan was calling from Grand Rapids to report Patty was out of surgery and in intensive care.

  “That’s good news,” I told her, recalling something Mickey’s Kathy had told me years ago when she worked intensive care. “They don’t put people in those beds unless they think they’re going to make it.”

  “Yes, the doctor said she’s probably going to pull through, but he’s worried she might have sustained permanent damage to her brain. We already know she won’t walk right for months if ever. I can’t believe how savage this beating was or how long it took.

  “They repaired broken bones in every finger, her hands, her toes and her feet. She was tortured, I think.”

  I sat there stunned. “Stomped is more like it, but why?”

  “I can’t know. Her surgeon said she’s not in a coma, just sleeping. He thinks it may be a day or two before she wakes up. He said she’s strong, but even he was pretty amazed she didn’t die. She’s a fighter.”

  We talked for a few more minutes, and then promised to talk again that night.

  I called Albright’s cell.

  “Randall, thanks. I just talked to Jan, and she’s safe in Michigan. You saved us.”

  “Not a problem; sounds like she’s mixed up in something that has spilled on you a bit. She told me about Punch.”

  I didn’t know what to say. “There’s a certain amount of mystery about all this, but I’m not sure her reporter getting beaten up is part of that.”

  “Well, you take care of that gal; she’s a keeper. You know the old line about all hat, no cattle? She’s got herds, partner, and she’s tough enough to tend ’em.”

  “Thanks, Randall. I’ll talk to you soon; I just wanted you to know your middle of the night mission was a success.”

  “Oh, no doubt; we both walked away from the landing!” He was laughing as he disconnected the call.

  32

  When Jan called back it was just six, and I heard the fatigue in her voice; fatigue mixed with hope.

  “They’ve upgraded her condition from critical to serious, and now the doctor’s saying she’ll be in a regular room this time tomorrow.”

  “How are you doing? Are you there alone? Where are you staying?”

  She explained that Patty’s parents were there from their home in Battle Creek and that Julie and Ken were there, too. “We’re all staying in a Best Western out on Twenty-eighth Street, not far from the hospital or the airport.”

  “Have you had any chance to talk with her yet?”

  “No, she’s still sleeping, but she’s getting stronger.”

  “Have the police found any witnesses to this?”

  “She had stopped into the bar for a beer after spending the whole day at the Kalkaska County Courthouse. She told Keith, the bartender, that the courthouse was the center of all known intelligence if you could keep your eyes open long enough to understand what you were looking at. Keith said she was jazzed up, excited about something.”

  “And then she goes to her car and is assaulted?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Anything stolen?”

  “Her laptop and brief case.”

  “She was doing that property search I suggested, wasn’t she?” I was feeling some guilt along with a bunch of confusion. Why would anyone think they’d stop a newspaper from pursuing public records by attacking the reporter assigned to the job?

  Julie had told Jan about a phone call from Patty that afternoon, just checking in. Seems the search I had suggested was jus
t half the loaf. Patty had learned that with the legal description in hand, she could trace the history of the deed back to the original land grants issued to settlers.

  “She told Julie that those records were like a genealogy project, fascinating history about the people and the times they lived in. Julie told her to keep her eye on the ball and stick to real reporting… She’s not beating herself up too bad right now.”

  “Every editor has some of those episodes where their normal human sensitivity was blocked out by the demand of the next deadline. We’ve all been there.”

  Her voice changed. “I’m going to stay here tomorrow, and if Patty is put into a regular room like they think, Julie and I will head back north; we have a paper to put out.”

  “Sure,” I answered in a similar tone, tinged with some regret about how our time together had been interrupted.

  “I’ll call you when I have something concrete, will that be all right?”

  “Sure. Keep in touch. I need to know if she sheds some light on who or why.”

  “Jim, I had the airlines leave the return flight date open on my ticket here, you think I could come back some time?”

  “I think. I can’t stop thinking, actually.”

  “You’re sweet. G’night.”

  33

  Jan called Tuesday morning with a bunch of news and some personal anxiety showing.

  “How you doing?” I asked.

  “Patty was moved to a private room after waking up at dawn and complaining that she was really hungry. Also Patty’s parents had arrived and seen the patient. I had to take a walk around the hospital to burn off energy.”

  But the real news was that Miles Lawton, the investigator from the state police, had been in to interview Patty. “He was so matter-of-fact. ‘The hospital called and said Miss Patterson was available for an interview. Have you seen her yet?’ Can you imagine? I was ready to burst realizing I wouldn’t be involved in that interview either. I about had a fit.