The Overnighter's Secrets

by J. L. Salter

  Right now, Nancy was ragging Dillon about her numbers... questioning why she wasn’t making any headway in the polls. He understood her being anxious, but sometimes she seemed accusatory. She’d better get off that horse.

  At the far end of her spacious headquarters, Durocher paced back and forth in her private office, her sharp heels clicking on the nightly-buffed tile. Dillon insisted she dress in heels and knee-length skirts because she had extremely nice legs, and that helped with male voters.

  “Nothing halfway in this campaign. I’ve probably only got one shot at this and it has to be good. I’ve never hired an illegal alien and my husband never plays around with women... including me.” Her face formed an icy grimace. “I’m the cleanest candidate since Jimmy Carter ran for Georgia governor.”

  Dillon winced at that comparison. “Nancy, I’ve hired the best investigator available. If any elderly uncles were stashed in asylums or any distant cousins caught syphilis from teenaged hookers, this professional will find out about it.”

  “Nothing gets out, Ed. No embarrassments whatsoever. I don’t know if my extended family is acquainted with those particular issues, but if they’re out there, make them disappear.”

  “Exactly.” He watched Nancy’s derrière as she paced. There were times Dillon thought he wanted her, but he always tamped down such feelings. The campaign was way too important to mess it up with sex.

  “Anything the Fitch camp could possibly use against me must be buried before the senator’s operatives know about it.”

  “How far back?” Dillon needed to hear her answer before he met with his research contractor.

  Durocher glared. She flicked bright fingernails as her patience evaporated. She had a fund-raising brunch across the avenue in a few minutes. “I don’t think he needs to panic if one of my Civil War ancestors got drunk and missed a minor skirmish.” That example was not merely hypothetical. “But if he finds a pertinent embarrassment... bury it.”

  “Then we’ve got the right man.” Dillon nodded, even though his candidate didn’t define pertinent. “This guy’s thorough and gets results.”

  “Who is this investigator anyway?”

  “Well, he’s kind of off the radar and wants to stay that way.”

  “Why?” Durocher quickly held up her hand. “Never mind. I understand. So I don’t meet with him.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Probably better that way.” Durocher paused. “But you’ve met him, right?”

  “We’ve spoken, made the arrangements. He’s actually already started. About three months ago, in fact.” Dillon cringed slightly as he realized he’d neglected to previously mention that hiring. But there was no reply, so he continued. “His idea was to prove his value and then negotiate for a higher contract.”

  Durocher held her hand vertically. “We don’t ever talk about money.” She looked stern for a moment and then seemed puzzled. “How’d you find him?” Another pause. “Never mind. Don’t want to know.” She placed a cold hand on Dillon’s sleeve. “But you trust him to find anything and everything that Fitch’s creeps could possibly dig up?”

  “Definitely. But, like I said before, I don’t think Fitch has any creeps. He seems to hold a notion that campaigns can be oh-so clean and tidy.”

  “I’m sure he’s as chivalrous as Lancelot, but I don’t trust Fitch or his goons. They could always turn on me at the last minute.” Durocher stopped pacing and leaned against her immaculate maple desk. One slender ankle crossed over the other. She apparently started to ask a question but didn’t. When she pursed her lips like that, it seemed her creaseless face might crack. “This hot shot investigating my relatives... is he the same man working on Fitch’s dirty laundry?”

  “No, it’s better to segregate those efforts.” Dillon held his hands far apart. “Completely different team on Fitch.”

  “Find anything useful yet?”

  “Fitch is boring and seems squeaky clean. But we’ll find out where his bodies are buried.”

  Nancy reached down to smooth something just above her shapely right knee. “What if the venerable senator doesn’t have any bodies?”

  Dillon snickered self-consciously. “We’ll fabricate some and blow everything wide open right before the election.”

  The candidate’s brittle face showed a subdued, but satisfied, smile. “So the election’s over before he can mount his defense.”

  “Exactly. Fitch can’t prepare counter-measures for something we just made up.”

  “Good job, Ed.” She leaned forward and touched his cheek with her cool fingertips. “So, who’s working on the surprises for late October?”

  “It’s premature, because I still figure we’ll come up with something real. But if we don’t find any actual dirt by…” he scanned her ornate desk calendar. “…October twentieth, I’ll make up the bogus stuff myself.”

  “Make it totally despicable.” Durocher moved around the rented desk and sat in her leather executive chair—an undisclosed donation from a wealthy friend. “But it has to seem realistic.”

  Dillon watched as she crossed her attractive legs. “It’ll be real enough to knock at least a dozen points off his polling numbers.”

  “That ought to be satisfactory.” Durocher smiled thinly, looked around the office, and stood abruptly. “Okay, I’ve got to get to the Nashvillage while their purses are still open.” This was one of the few events she could handle by herself—no media.

  Dillon watched her leave. At age fifty-five, she still looked quite nice... when headed the other way. As long as you don’t see that cold, brittle face.

  Dillon waited five minutes after his agitated boss left and then phoned the new number Kaser had recently provided.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Afternoon

  As Beth did on most Sunday afternoons, she drove across Nashville to visit her mostly home-bound parents, who lived near Exit 196 where U.S. Highway 70 intersected Interstate 40. Usually her visits were a couple of hours, but today her father seemed agitated and her mother was emotional. Beth figured Dad was still battling the medical bureaucrats and assumed Mom was recycling grief over her favorite child, Robert. Sometimes it seemed as though her mother wished the ALS had stricken Beth instead.

  One thing was certain—they never discussed such matters. In fact, other than a few details about Robert’s funeral arrangements, Beth and her mother had hardly talked about him since. Her dead brother was the elephant in the room which wouldn’t be discussed. Maybe their grief could pass more easily if any of the three survivors could speak of it. Maybe not.

  All Beth knew for certain was how oppressive their house felt with Robert’s death hanging heavily in the air but no one able to speak about it. At such times, all Beth could do was start screaming... or leave. Departure was always the better option—once she hit the Interstate, she could scream. As loudly as she needed to.

  ****

  At home, trying to nap, Beth couldn’t stop thinking about her double-locked doors. She felt a little crazy, but was sane enough to recognize it. That was partly a good sign. If Shane were here, he’d rub the muscles in her neck and shoulders to help her relax. Of course, his rubs never stopped there, and they usually ended up cuddling. If he was a grizzly bear in day-to-day life, he was a teddy bear after they cuddled.

  But that was some three years ago. Whoever or whatever was riding his Harley over two thousand miles was certainly not a teddy bear. Shane was on his way here to eliminate a threat to Beth’s safety. When he felt he had to eliminate something, it was usually violent and bloody. Shane was confident and capable, which was nearly as frightening as it was comforting.

  Beth didn’t like being the damsel in distress. It was nice to have a champion willing to fight for her, but there was baggage associated with those archetypal roles.

  Speaking of baggage. Beth snapped her fingers. She needed more analysis of the overnighter’s contents. But this would be solo, without Jeff’s perceptiveness or Connie’s distrac
tions.

  The stacks were still sorted as when everyone had departed the previous evening. Beth scooped the remaining loose items from the bottom of the little suitcase and took them inside. When alone, she didn’t want to be in the garage. Maybe those mementoes wouldn’t smell as bad when separated from their container of many years.

  She placed a beach towel over the kitchen tabletop and began examining things from the case. A few more post cards, programs from little theaters across the country, loose photos of different individuals, and another legal document. A few pieces of sheet music, some roughly cut newspaper clippings, and a horoscope booklet. Hmm. Rather diverse lot.

  What’s this? Extremely old, faded pages with ancient style handwriting in brownish ink. She picked them up carefully. No indication who wrote it, but the top page was titled, “The Hanging of Jones”. A manuscript! Beth tried to read the first paragraph, but the script was so old fashioned, she couldn’t make out several letters. She was able to pick out enough words, however, to realize she was looking at a story even older than those Vaudeville programs, likely back into the Nineteenth Century.

  “Jeff McCabe would love to get his mitts on something like this,” she said out loud. “Librarians kill for antique manuscripts.” Just about anyone would.

  She carefully lifted out the ancient pages, secured at the top by a rusty straight pin. Then she grabbed her phone. Two numbers for Jeff: his house line and cell phone. Beth selected the latter. It rang twice.

  “Hello?”

  “Jeff, I found a story. Old story. Manuscript. No author. Must be a hundred years old if it’s a day. Probably older than those Vaudeville programs.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Oh, hush. You know it’s Beth. And wait’ll you see this thing. It’s the same handwriting as on the Declaration of Independence!”

  “That would make it, uh, about two-hundred-thirty-five years old.” He yawned into his phone. “Call me a skeptic.”

  “Okay, not that old. But crazy old. Insane old. Older than dirt.”

  “Enough. We can date it later. Back up and tell me what it is.”

  She told him everything she’d determined so far, including the title. Beth knew Jeff would be excited.

  “How many pages?”

  “Hold on... they’re pretty brittle. I’m putting my phone down.” She carefully removed the pin and counted as she gently lifted and flipped each sheet. “Seven.”

  “Okay... what size and type of paper?”

  “Oh, I don’t know anything about paper, but I’ve got a ruler here somewhere.” She raced to the desk in her bedroom and returned with two rulers. “Let’s see... about nine inches wide and fourteen and three-quarters long.”

  “Unusual size. Anything distinguishing about the paper?”

  “Hmm. In the corners it has large blue numbers—looks like they were printed with a machine—and there’s faint lines across the main part, like a tablet has.”

  “The numbers throw me.” Jeff paused. “How come this never came up the other night?”

  “I didn’t know about it.” Beth squeezed her eyes shut and frowned at her phone. “Well, actually, I guess I’d forgotten until just now when I saw it.”

  “Does your ex know anything?”

  “I’ll ask.”

  “So, what’s this old, old story about?”

  “This antique handwriting is hardly legible. I guess that’s why I never really read it before. Shane did, right after he got it. It was weird how excited he was. He kept trying to get me interested, but—to me—it was almost like a foreign language.”

  “Do you remember anything your boyfriend said about it?”

  “Hardly anything. Gosh, that was years ago. Maybe something about a steamboat experience.”

  “And, from the title, obviously a hanging.” Jeff cleared his throat. “Interesting combination.”

  Beth held it up to her kitchen light. “No watermark that I can see.”

  “Wouldn’t expect one, if it’s the type of paper I think you’re describing.” It sounded like Jeff shifted his phone to the other ear. “Any idea who Jones is—I mean was?”

  “Not a clue. Pretty common name.”

  “Look, I’ve got to go. Tanya just arrived with supper. You’re sure this manuscript looks old enough to be affiliated with your silent movie star?”

  “Easily, Jeff. Probably a lot older than that.”

  “Okay, Beth. I love old manuscripts. I’ll pick it up before I go to work tomorrow. Bye, and thanks.”

  Next, Beth called Shane’s number, but it went to voicemail so she left a message. Since he was probably still on the road, Shane wouldn’t be able to talk even if he was in a zone with good satellite coverage.

  While she waited on his return call, Beth kept herself busy. First, she took a quick shower—after rechecking the door locks. Then she started a load of clothes and rinsed some dishes. Not full enough to run the dishwasher yet, however. She realized she was merely keeping her hands busy while she waited for Shane’s call-back... and Beth wondered why she felt so antsy.

  By ten o’clock, she gave up on the call and climbed into bed. With a paperback propped in front of her, she finally dozed off. Then Shane called.

  “Are you just now stopping? Where are you?”

  “I stopped for supper just east of Oklahoma City and caught forty winks at a truck stop. Had to fight the rain all the way to Fort Smith.”

  “You’re already in Arkansas?”

  “Yep. And couldn’t ride another mile. It’s been a while since I’ve taken a long trip. Forgot how much it grinds on my butt.” Shane coughed in the Ozarks. “I’ve been trying to dry off and warm up for half an hour. I’ll be there tomorrow night sometime, unless there’s more weather problems.”

  With him only a day away, Beth had a minor panic attack. She worried Shane was coming for the wrong reason. She’d wanted him to be with her many times, especially during their first year of separation. But she hadn’t wanted to ask him. She figured he should have known. Even though she realized she needed Shane here, Beth still wasn’t sure she wanted him. Well, she did, but she didn’t. That wasn’t it exactly: these weren’t the circumstances in which she wanted to see him again. She had become the damsel again, but she wanted to meet Shane on level ground. However, she couldn’t explain any of that to him. Guys were from Mars, and Shane was from the extreme side of that planet—the area where gladiators battle to the death and men eat raw meat. Well, Shane preferred meat grilled to well done, but that wrecked Beth’s metaphor.

  “Bethany, are you still there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here. Just have cobwebs in my head. I’d dozed off right before you called.” She paused. “Do you remember that odd, very old handwritten story about the hanging and the riverboat?”

  “Yeah. Sure do. Unusual paper. Real hard to read.”

  “Nearly impossible. I’d forgotten all about it. Found it this evening, way in the bottom of the overnighter. I’d like to loan it to my friend Jeff. He’s a whiz at manuscripts and stuff.”

  A cold silence in Fort Smith. “So who is this Jeff?”

  “Just a friend... married friend. Works at the library. No reason to be jealous.”

  Another pause, though slightly shorter. “Hmm. Guess I don’t remember enough details from that story.”

  “I’m wondering if it could be connected to our actress, Lynette.”

  “Hard to say. But I doubt it.” Shane coughed softly... he must have covered his mouth. “Remember, those tweakers tossed all kinds of other stuff in that suitcase. That old story—as cool as it was—probably doesn’t have anything to do with anything. Just an old tale batted around on the riverboats a long time before folks had TV and video games.”

  “Well, I’m bummed. When I found it tonight, I had an immediate feeling about it. Like it was connected to something.”

  “Were there any other manuscripts in the case?”

  “Let’s see.” Beth had to think. “There was a script or
a play or something like that, but it was typed. Nothing else in that old-timey handwriting.”

  “Well, compare the handwriting with the diary—should be in the case, too.”

  “Yeah. But Jeff has it.”

  “Bethany! You can’t give away all my stuff!”

  “I didn’t give it to him. He’s going to study it, analyze it. He can see things that I would miss.”

  “Well, he’d better give it back...”

  “He’s my friend, Shane. He’s helping me. I’ll get the stuff back. Guarantee.”

  Over the remainder of the conversation, Beth tried to calm Shane’s obvious fear that his belongings were in jeopardy.

  Nearly an hour after the phone call, Beth was still too awake to lie in bed, and too wired to read. So she got up and further examined the ancient manuscript.

  It was written with a fountain pen and a slight shakiness which could be attributed to an older person. The handwriting was such an older style—people hadn’t written that way in a hundred years! The ink color varied from light blackish to light brownish. In some spots, the ink had faded completely and only the impression left by the pen’s nib made it possible to know a word had ever been there. Besides the ink, the paper’s age and condition all pointed to the turn of the previous century.

  Beth was certain. But it remained to see what Jeff would say.

  Chapter Eighteen

  October 10 (Monday—Columbus Day Observance)

  Beth was already dressed and watching through the window curtains. At 7:15 a.m. Tanya McCabe’s lime green vehicle drove up and Jeff hopped out. “Are you down to one car, Jeff?”