by Dan Kelly
“An Editor-in-Chief’ sets the overall tone for the newspaper. He chooses the direction, the article focus, the columnists, etc. In essence, he’s the head honcho in the production of the paper. A Managing Editor’s job is to make the Editor-in-Chief’s wishes and policies a reality.”
My lesson in journalism is interrupted by a visit from Sadie. “Where have you two been and what have you been up to?”
Shifting back into quip mode I say, “Out and about doing a little of this and a little of that.”
“Sounds boring. Go dancing, spend an evening at the Lincoln or Howard Theater or take a cruise somewhere. Put some excitement and romance in your lives. Try it you might like it.”
Staring at her with the sternest look I can muster I say, “Sadie, behave yourself.”
Laughing she says, “Try the chocolate mousse with exotic spices. You’ll love it. At least your taste buds will get titillated.” She then turns her back on us and heads for the Reardon Room.
Janet can’t keep from laughing and says, “She sure knows how to make your face turn red.”
Fortunately, our food arrives so I’m saved from trying to come up with a witty response by diving into my baked ziti with gusto and it would be impolite to talk with my mouth full.
Janet lets me off the hook by changing the subject.
“How’s Mrs. Aldrich holding up?”
“Don says she’s still harboring a lot of guilt over helping the FBI trap her husband, but she’s good to go. In a little over two hours the fireworks begin, literally.”
“I feel sorry for the poor lady. First she loses her son, then she loses her husband because she’s lost her son and now she’s about to play a key role in putting her husband in prison for the rest of his life which is kind of losing him all over again.”
“I know how you feel. Life can throw us some nasty curves sometimes.”
We finish our meals in silence and when it comes time for dessert, our waitress does not ask us if we’d like to see the dessert menu, but instead delivers two huge servings of chocolate mousse with exotic spices saying, “Compliments of the house.”
Whether or not it lives up to Sadie’s endorsement remains to be seen, but its unexpected appearance has certainly tickled our funny bones as we both explode in laughter.
It was a perfect way to end the evening. A hell of a lot better than being shot at like the last time we were here.
Janet heads for home to check the weather forecast for tomorrow and attend to some household chores and pay some bills. I head for home to stare at the four walls or my TV because I don’t have a thing that needs my immediate attention.
Chapter 37
A little after nine as I’m futzing around with my refrigerator’s ice maker which has a mind of its own when it comes to dispensing ice cubes my cell phone rings. It’s Don calling to tell me that Mrs. Aldrich is on her way to Union Station. “I was going to put a tail on her until she arrives at Raleigh-Durham International where the Raleigh agents will take over. I was figuring it was a good back up plan in case Aldrich gets cute and changes his program somewhere along her route to Raleigh. I wouldn’t put it past him to try something, but he’s smarter and more cautious than the average nutcase and might spot the tail, especially if he has an eye in the sky, and the ball game would be over, so I nixed the idea.”
“That was a tough call to make, but I think you made the right one. How did it go with the fireworks? Did they create a 911 incident?”
“Surprisingly, none of the neighbors gave the sounds a second thought. What does that say about our society? The surveillance guys played their roles to the hilt, even acting very angry at being distracted when they discovered the remains of the firecrackers in the Coolidge’s backyard. They resumed their stakeout positions acting like they didn’t know they had been duped and Mrs. Aldrich was no longer in the house. If Aldrich had an eye in the sky, he was also duped. I was watching the entire incident unfold from a van parked a few doors down from the Aldrich house and if I hadn’t been in the know I would have been taken in by their performance.”
“Well, it looks like we got off to a good start. Let’s hope we have a good finish. Thanks for keeping me in the loop, Don. Don’t forget to pick me up at one tomorrow. I don’t want to miss out on the finale.” Click.
I finally get the ice dispenser to spit out some cubes, so I fill the glass with sarsaparilla soda and plop down in my recliner to watch the rest of a NCIS rerun. Ever since I was a kid my favorite soft drink has been sarsaparilla and it’s hard to find. I’ve found a health food store that sells it and I buy it by the case, but invariably forget to put some in the fridge.
At ten the news comes on and the lead story has me spilling some ice cold sarsaparilla in my lap which will kick start your engine let me tell you. The anchor opens up with, “Breaking news. This just in. Moments ago the FBI went to the house where the wife of the Crusader has been staying to place her under arrest for complicity in her husband’s killing spree only to find she has flown the coop. The lead FBI investigator, Agent Ericson, is unavailable for comment at this time.”
The anchor goes on to summarize the entire Crusader vendetta and finishes with, “We will keep you updated as this latest chapter in the Crusader saga unfolds.”
A few seconds later my cell rings. It's Janet. “Have you by any chanced tuned into the ten o’clock news?
“Yeah, I just heard the news flash. Where did that come from?”
“The only answer that makes any sense is that there had to be a leak somewhere. I know it wasn’t me and Don wouldn’t say anything because something like this could scare Aldrich off. Right now the last thing Aldrich wants is publicity. He’s got to be hoping that he and his wife will be at their final destination undetected before the media gets its hands on the story. This will put him in a bigger spot light and now it will be on his wife as well. Don wouldn’t’ do something like this just to add another element of believability to our scheme.”
My mind is racing a mile a minute and it’s drawing a couple of conclusions, one of them I’m hesitating to voice to Janet because somehow she might blame herself. She’s a bright lady though and it won’t take her long to arrive at the same conclusions, so I blurt out my thoughts to her.
“Janet, it’s very reasonable to assume that the leak came from one or more of three places, Don’s office, your office or my office. Mrs. Aldrich’s neighbors can be eliminated because they didn’t have a clue about what was going on since they didn’t even react to the firecrackers going off and stayed inside their residences if they were home. My office can be eliminated because no one in it has any reason to do something like that
“I believe it’s also safe to assume that Don, you or I didn’t accidentally let something slip which was overheard by someone who for some unknown reason passed it on to the media. The three of us are just too disciplined to do something like that.
“That leaves two persons of interest in my mind, Piedmont or Furious Ferdinand. It would have been relatively easy for them to learn about what we were up to even though they’ve been deliberately kept out of the loop because they didn’t have a need to know until it was history and secrecy was a primary concern of ours. They could have eavesdropped on conversations, caught glimpses of emails, notes, agendas, whatever. Either one of these guys could have spilled the beans for personal reasons, the primary one in my mind being jealousy, believing that it might lead to a failure of the plan resulting in embarrassment to the person they don’t like along with putting a black mark on that individual’s career.
“Piedmont because he’s being transferred to the boondocks and not Don and Don is now reporting directly to his boss who looks favorably on him. Furious Ferdinand because his health is forcing him to retire early, leaving you to advance your career probably further along than he did and he won’t be around to try to push you off that track. There’s no love lost between Piedmont and Don and likewise between Ferdie and you and that’s what’s putting the
m under my microscope.”
“Wow! Sherlock Holmes had nothing on you. As Dr. Watson would say, ‘Brilliant deductions, Dawson.’”
“And as Sherlock Holmes would say, ‘Elementary, Vanderhill, elementary.”
The bantering is taking some of the sting out of this latest development, but not much as is evidenced by Janet‘s next comment.
“I don’t see any flaws in your reasoning, Chet, but it really doesn’t set well with me if you’re right on because that means one of them made it possible for the Crusader to both elude capture by abandoning his plan and lengthen his string of killings if he so chooses.”
“The leak had to come from one of these two men because either one of them would be considered a credible source to be believed enough for the station to air it and as you know the reporter who got the tip isn’t going to willingly reveal his source. There are journalists who have gone to jail to avoid doing that. Whichever one spilled the beans, he had to tell a convincing lie about why he was doing it or the station wouldn’t have run the story so quickly without trying to check it out. There probably are others who could have learned about our plot, but what would be their motivation to go to the TV station with it. The entire plot wasn’t revealed because that would have quickly pointed us in the direction of the most probable persons of interest and our tipster is jealous not stupid. Don can’t refute the story because Mrs. Aldrich is gone and any denial would arouse Aldrich’s suspicions.”
“We’re basing our suspicions on a lot of supposition, but the conclusions we’re drawing make sense. Unfortunately, the person who tried to sabotage our latest attempt to put the Crusader behind bars will probably not have to answer for interfering with an ongoing FBI operation. How do you think Aldrich will react?”
“My guess is he’ll stick to his game plan as he has no reason to believe that the authorities know what he’s up to. It’s obvious he still loves his wife and will do everything possible to keep her out of jail. The tipster wasn’t thinking about the Crusader when he shot off his mouth, Janet. Aldrich wasn’t his target. You or Don is the target. The tipster wants to hurt his target and embarrassment and career damage are his weapons.”
“Damn! The thought that either of these men would resort to something like this because of their dislike for Don or me never crossed my mind.”
“Don must be livid. When he got word that the TV station wanted to talk with him about Mrs. Aldrich’s disappearance, he must have started going through the same mental gymnastics we’ve been going through and has probably drawn the same conclusions we have. If Ericson becomes convinced that it was Piedmont that leaked the story, I can almost guarantee that it will be Piedmont’s career that gets flushed down the toilet not Don’s. From what I’ve learned from working with Don, he doesn’t start fights but he finishes most of them. He’s not a man you want to piss off.”
“Well, as mother likes to say, ‘what’s done is done and we have to live with it.’ Good night, Chet.”
“Good night, Janet.”
Man, life sure can get complicated sometimes. I wonder what other unpleasant surprises are waiting for us around the bend. On that cheerful note, I clean up the mess I made with the spilt sarsaparilla and hit the sack. Tune in tomorrow for another day in the life of PI Dawson. Huh. I sound like one of those old radio programs my dad had tapes of and used to play for my brother and me when he was in one of his good old days moods.
Chapter 38
When I wake up in the morning, I have my first surprise of the day. It’s pouring out and the wind is stirring up all kinds of loose junk on the ground and blowing shingles off the surrounding buildings. According to the weather forecast, this storm was not to come on shore but continue moving north and stay at sea until it got around Connecticut somewhere.
There’s no way Janet can take off in in this kind of weather even if we’d be flying in the other direction once we got airborne. Trying to get above the storm in a small plane would just be too risky. The commercial airlines will probably be flying, so Don will have to deal with the hassle of getting a seat on a flight that will get him to Raleigh in time for him to be in on the Crusader’s take down at the airport.
Janet and I will have to hold down the fort here in D.C. There’s no way Uncle Sam will spring for commercial airfare for the both of us since we really don’t have to be there. The cost of Janet’s rental and other related expenses wouldn’t have been a problem because it was justifiable for Don to incur that expense and we tagging along wouldn’t have added any expense.
Janet and I could spring for the commercial airfare, assuming we could get a seat on a flight that was within our time frame, or we could drive down and meet Don at the Raleigh FBI office, but I don’t want to be in on the finale that bad. Janet might consider it since she really wants to have a front row seat when the cuffs are put on Aldrich and the paper might reimburse her for any airfare expenses since her being there would give the paper a distinct advantage over the competition and put a feather in their cap for all to see plus give them a wonderful opportunity to toot their horn in commercials for quite a while.
I hop into the shower where I sometimes do my best thinking and try to convince myself to go to Raleigh on my own dime and time, but I can’t do it. After I finish my morning ablutions and have some cereal and juice to stoke my metabolic furnace, I head into the office.
The traffic is a mess as some of the streets are flooded due to clogged street drains and impatient drivers are making things worse as they tailgate and cutoff other drivers so they can avoid being chewed out by their bosses for not leaving home early enough to ensure they would get to work on time. Add a few fender benders into the mix and you have to contend with traffic snarls no matter what route you take.
When I finally get to my office it’s a little after nine and the place is empty. It looks like I’m not the only one who got stuck in traffic. After making a pot of coffee and booting up my computer, I lean back in my chair and stare at my list of tasks I’ve inputted to be addressed today and start mentally editing the list since I won’t be going to Raleigh this afternoon. I’m a few minutes into this when Janet calls.
“Are you and Don still good to go this afternoon?”
“Janet, what planet are you calling from? It’s pouring buckets. The plane will be floating down the runway. You’ll never get it off the ground and would be nuttier than Aldrich to try.”
“I just got the latest weather report and this storm will be nothing but a drizzle with the winds in the zero to 5 miles per hour range by two this afternoon. We’ll be fine.”
“The last weather forecast I heard turned out to be fairy tale. This storm was supposed to blow right on by us and stay out in the Atlantic. There’s a lot of room for improvement as far as their accuracy is concerned, so I don’t rely on them. I just try to be prepared for whatever weather shows up and deal with it as it comes. If I were Don, I would be trying to make a reservation on a commercial flight.”
“Well, I’ve cleared my calendar for this afternoon because the weather folks’ track record with me is very good and I’ll be airborne a few minutes after two. If you guys aren’t there, I’ll leave without you. I’ve got a meeting to attend so I’ve got to go now. I don’t mind flying solo. I do it all the time. However, I’m not too keen on going into the main terminal to hide myself somewhere close by the United Airlines ticket counter without someone watching my back. My bodyguard won’t be with me. I’d also feel better if I had someone advising me on what I should and shouldn’t do when I arrive at the airport. I hope you guys will be with me. Bye.”
As soon as I hang up from talking with Janet my phone rings again. This time it’s Don.
“It’s great weather for ducks and fish, but terrible for small planes. I’ve made a reservation to fly commercially and my flight leaves at 11:45. I’ll do my best to give you a blow-by-blow as things unfold in Raleigh.”
“I just spoke with Janet and she says the latest weather report is calling
for drizzle and calm winds by two this afternoon. She’s planning on going whether or not we’re with her.”
