Authoring Amelia

by Lia Conklin

  Jonathon gaped at her. “I have to admit, Amelia, it’s not every day someone tells me their father is a suspected terrorist. I just don’t know what to do with that information.”

  “Oh gosh, no. I’m not saying he’s suspected of being a terrorist,” Amelia replied with alarm. “He’s a journalist. And all we can figure is he must have had some journalistic connections with a suspected terrorist or something. He’s not a terrorist, for gosh sakes no.”

  “Okay, okay,” Jonathon soothed, moving from his chair to sit on the edge of the desk in front of her. “I misunderstood, okay?” He slowly reached out his hand to capture a lock of her hair, gently running it between his middle and index fingers. He almost seemed to have forgotten why she was there and what had brought him to her side of the desk. Then clearing his throat, he moved his eyes from the lock of hair he let fall from his fingers and returned them to look upon her face.

  “You’ve got me undone,” he said in a throaty whisper. “Even if your father were a terrorist,” he put his hand up quickly before Amelia could retort, “which he is not, I’ll do whatever I can to help you. You know that, don’t you?”

  Amelia didn’t know anything for sure, only that she wanted him to play again with her hair and to move those worried lips of his to hers so she could bring them relief. He was sincere in his pledge to help, she felt sure, and that both touched and terrified her.

  “I know,” she finally said, looking into his eyes. “You don’t know how much that means to me.”

  “Okay,” he replied, rising from the desk and reassuming his lawyer persona. “Let’s think this through. Did you check the state pens? They usually don’t hold people for federal crimes in those, but who knows? It may be worth a shot,” he suggested. “Or we could also just call the FBI and ask them,” he continued.

  “I suppose we could,” Amelia replied, embarrassed she had not thought to do just that.

  “Why don’t we call now, while you’re here? To be honest, with a thirteen-year-old personal injury suit, you’re going to need your father’s testimony to get anywhere.”

  Jonathon made the phone call, and after being jockeyed around from department to department was finally talking to someone who seemed to be the person who could help. He explained in as much detail as Amelia had given him the situation and consulted the notes Amelia provided him, ones she had used earlier that morning, to furnish her father’s full name, birth date, social security number, and date of arrest.

  “Really,” he said, finally looking earnestly over at Amelia. “So, you can only say that you have no record of him being charged but not whether he’s being held.” Amelia held his eyes with hers and eagerly watched them register each kernel of new knowledge he gleaned. “If you can’t divulge any information regarding him, can I assume that sealing orders apply in this case? Or should we file a missing person’s report? … In cases involving suspected terrorists? You mean to tell me that if he were being held for some case involving the suspicion of terrorism, his family may not be privy to any information whatsoever pertaining to his case? I see,” he nodded, eyes still locked with hers. “Okay, then. Thank you very much for your time, Agent Lawrence, did you say? Thanks, again.” He hung up the phone still looking at her. She couldn’t move her mouth, let alone say a word, but her eyes that bore into his asked all the questions her mouth could not.

  Finally, he spoke. “Basically, they can’t tell us anything, but given that conversation, I’d say it was pretty likely his case has been sealed. That means he’s probably in custody somewhere, but we can’t get any information at all regarding him. Of course, it’s possible he’s simply missing, though the agent wasn’t in a hurry to encourage my filing a missing person’s report.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before continuing.

  “This sounds a bit more than some journalism work,” he finally admitted. “Amelia, how much did you really know about your father? The FBI doesn’t mess around sealing orders for a two-bit journalist here or there. Can you really be sure that he’s not involved with terrorists?”

  Amelia’s face fell, tears forming at the corners of her eyes. “What happened to innocent until proven guilty?” she demanded resentfully. “You don’t know anything about my father, yet you’re already picturing him piloting an airplane that smashes into the American flag. My father’s a journalist. He’s only guilty of trying to find the truth. I guess that makes me guilty too.”

  Her face was hot and flushed. Had she been less agitated, she may have questioned why she would defend her father at all. But she didn’t have time to deliberate her reaction as Jonathon’s hand reached across to grasp the clenched one she had just set upon the desk.

  “You’re right, Amelia,” he acquiesced. “I’m jumping to conclusions. It’s easy to do that when you’ve had friends or family die in 9/11. I had both an uncle and a friend of my father’s die in the attack. It’s hard for me to keep an open mind. Do you accept my apology?”

  She wasn’t ready to nod just yet. She could only think that Donovan would have responded differently. Wouldn’t he have thought of Leonard Peltier and understood instinctively the righteous rush to judge those who stood up to the government? Jonathon could never have that perspective. Yet, she admitted, he did have his own, equally rooted in history and personal experience.

  “Okay,” she conceded. “I can’t expect you to understand someone as complicated as my father when I can’t understand him myself. And I guess I didn’t give you much time to contemplate the situation. Anyway,” she sighed heavily, “what can we do next?”

  Jonathon almost recovered his smile, but now it was hedged with misgiving and perhaps mistrust.

  “I’m at a loss, really,” he admitted. “I’ll consult with some colleagues to see if they have any suggestions on how we can find him. I guess we can go ahead without him if we have to, but I have to say that his testimony would definitely help your suit.”

  There was nothing else to say, and as Amelia departed, she had only her father to thank for one more unfortunate situation. Why did he have to be her father? She let herself luxuriously imagine for the moment that Jonathon Lundberg Sr. was her father. He would have bought her a horse they’d stable in the suburbs and have gone to each of her riding competitions. She would have had voice and guitar lessons with the best instructors money could buy, and she would have entertained his clientele at the annual Christmas parties held at their mansion. And, she realized with a shudder, have had an incestuous affair with her brother. Maybe there really was a reason things were as they were.

  Chapter 61

  Although she hadn’t slept more than a handful of the last forty-eight hours, Amelia was alert on adrenaline and eager to know what Connie had found out. She had called Connie after her meeting with Jonathon and described his conversation with the FBI. Connie had simply said, “You’ve got to come over, girl, I think I may know what’s going on. See you in ten?” Now here was Connie greeting her at the door with a cup of black American coffee which, from the sip Amelia took out of politeness, may as well have been reheated from the cup she had barely touched the day before.

  “So,” Connie said, shuffling Amelia over to her cluttered kitchen table, “interesting information your lawyer friend uncovered. Set off the little warning bells in my head.”

  “How so?” Amelia queried, perplexed.

  “I actually have a bit of experience in this area. Journalistic experience, not lived experience,” she qualified. “I’ve written several stories about the misuse of something called the material witness statute, and I think that offers a possible scenario for your father’s situation.”

  “Material witness statute?”

  “Right on cue,” Connie smiled, targeting Amelia with a quick finger point. “The material witness statute allows law enforcement to detain a person without charges until they give testimony in front of a grand jury or in a criminal trial. To get a warrant, a prosecutor must convince a judge that the person in question is privy to im
portant or ‘material’ information concerning a crime and poses a flight risk. In your father’s case, I think the FBI would be able to convince a judge on both counts. First, your dad publicly claimed to have a source ‘close to the London bombers’ and second, he left the country for thirteen years and just recently returned. Given the continued threat of terrorism and the fact that his informant claims ties to suicide bombers, and in turn their ties to Al Qaeda, I think a judge would be pretty convinced by this argument.”

  Amelia nodded. Although she hadn’t heard of a material witness before, with this explanation it did seem like a plausible explanation for her father’s detainment.

  “I’m surprised to hear that someone can be held for information they know instead of a crime they committed, but if that’s true, it makes sense in my dad’s case. Wouldn’t he get a lawyer though? And wouldn't we know about it?”

  “Yes, he would get court-appointed counsel, but if they decided to seal the proceedings, then we really wouldn’t know about it.”

  “How does that work?”

  “Grand jury testimony is always closed, but the warrant and other proceedings are generally open. However, the judge could decide to seal the warrant and its subsequent proceedings if he believed knowledge of them posed a danger to the witness or to law enforcement’s ability to make a case. In such a scenario, only the prosecutor, your father, his court-appointed lawyer, select law enforcement officials, and the judge would know about his detainment. However, the warrant should be on the docket, which is public, but we can only locate it if they include his name.”

  “Can we check?” Amelia interrupted.

  “Already did before you got here. So that either means I’m wrong, and he’s not being held as a material witness, or it simply means that the docket doesn’t include his name.”

  “Okay, okay,” Amelia sighed, shaking her head in frustration. “So, let’s say you’re right and he is being held somewhere as a material witness. How do we find him?”

  Connie wearily shook her head. “Well, unless his counsel or another privy party breaks the sealing orders, there’s nothing we can do.”

  Nothing we can do, Amelia thought as she drove away. How can that be? The pieces of the scattered puzzle whirred about her brain, and before she realized it, she found herself parked at the cemetery, the Kingston plot looking down upon her. She sat there, staring at the steering wheel, plotting the information she knew and the information she needed upon its axis. In the center stood the truth; they had wanted her to find the truth. One prong of the steering wheel led to her father, and another, the investigation into the explosion.

  For now, the investigation was most likely a dead end without her father. All roads led to him. Except, as of yet, there was no road to follow.

  Neither Connie nor Jonathon had discovered any information about him. He was a ghost in a machine. But didn’t his name have to be somewhere? With all those temperature-controlled warehouses of wall-to-wall digital data, some database somewhere held his name. But whose? Then a giant head exploded through the waves of confusion in her brain. She knew whose. Bull’s.

  Chapter 62

  After waving hurriedly through the car window up at her family upon the hill, Amelia raced home to her grandmother’s. Before she had even caught her breath, she was dialing the number and listening to the phone ringing at the other end. When Pamela answered, Amelia found herself smiling, imagining the pleasure Pamela would feel at the sound of her voice.

  “Pamela, it’s Amelia.” It didn’t take much imagination, as Pamela’s response echoed into her eardrum, forcing Amelia to jerk back the receiver.

  “Yes, Pamela. Missing you already! How’s everything going now that things are back to normal?” Amelia listened while Pamela told her how boring it was and how difficult to get back to Jack and Russ as her only companions. Finally, Amelia found the opportunity to ask for Russ. But before Russ could make it to the phone, Pamela was back breathlessly in her ear.

  “Amelia, I almost forgot. Somebody called for you. Donovan something or other. Said it was urgent and asked if I had a number for you. I told him I couldn’t give out your number, so he gave me his. Do you have a pen handy?”

  In spite of herself, Amelia squeezed the pen she already held in her hand, unable to stop it from shaking. She knew she already had his number, but she couldn’t help but jot it down again anyway. She barely heard Pamela’s departing remarks and was little aware of her own when Russ’s voice crying her name jarred her back.

  “Same to you Russ! How are things going?” Like Pamela, Russ had a few complaints about the change of pace but was excited to share a bit of good news.

  “Remember, Jason?” he nearly whispered into the receiver. “He called me the other day and invited me out to his cabin on Lake Tahoe! I’ll be going next month. Not only good-looking, but as it turns out, rich!”

  “And has the hots for you—a deadly combination,” Amelia giggled.

  “Definitely a combination I’m willing to handle,” he replied.

  Amelia took advantage of the pause in conversation to get to the point of her call.

  “Russ, I’m calling to get some information from you. I know this is going to surprise you, but I was wondering if you could get me the phone number for Bull, I mean Mr. Goldfield.”

  “Who? Are you crazy?” he cried, unable to hide his consternation.

  “Yeah, I know. The last thing you’d expect, but I need some information about the Terrorist Screening Center, and I thought he might be able to help me out.”

  “Not unless it involves interrogating you, he won’t,” came Russ’s immediate response.

  “You’re probably right, but since he loves to feel important, I thought he might even appreciate my being beholden to him.”

  “You might be onto something there, Amelia. Tell you what. Let me look for his number, and I’ll give you a call back tonight or tomorrow.”

  “That would be great, Russ. I appreciate it. It was great to hear your voice, and have fun at Lake Tahoe! Make sure to ask your rich friend if he has any rich straight friends for me!”

  “I’ll do. Take care, Amelia.”

  Chapter 63

  As they hung up, Amelia caught sight of the number scrawled on the notepad, and her warm thoughts for Russ were suddenly replaced by an urgent longing that welled up inside her. It would be so easy for her to dial him, hear his deep voice on the other end, feel his breath in her ear. Her whole body spoke her need for him, and in spite of the tingles that traveled through her bloodstream and collected at the base of her pelvis, she remembered the last time she had called. The voice that answered hadn’t been deep. With a shudder, she tossed the paper in the garbage, simultaneously realizing she wasn’t breathing. She inhaled sharply. Instantly nauseous, she barely made it to the bathroom in time. How far you can reach me, she thought, and watched her lunch disappear down the toilet.

  Throughout the course of the evening, Amelia fished out that paper and threw it back nearly a dozen times. Finally, when Russ called her back with Bull’s number, she added his number to the paper, in the name of economy, of course.

  This new number set her heart pumping as well, for obviously a different reason. What would she ask him? What would he know? What would he actually tell her, whether he knew something or not? She knew the questions were pointless and in spite of her unsettled stomach dialed the number.

  She was about to hang up when Bull picked up. He was just beginning to bellow “Hello” into the phone for the second time when Amelia finally found her voice.

  “Hello, Mr. Goldfield? This is Amelia Kingston. I was one of the guides on the cattle drive you went on this past spring. Not sure you remember me.”

  “Skinny, freckled one,” he grunted as a response. Amelia had never considered herself freckled but taking that as a “yes” charged ahead.

  “I’m calling to seek your expertise as a terrorist screening analyst. Seems my father may have had some trouble on his return
to the U.S. from Central America, and knowing your status within the department, I immediately thought that maybe you could help us.”

  “Listen, honey,” he huffed. “My job ain’t helping lawbreakers out of messes. Individual responsibility is what I’m all about. If your dad done got himself into a mess, well he’ll just have to get himself out.”

  “You’re right, of course, Mr. Goldfield. The problem is that he’s my dad and he needs my help. What can I say? I just remembered learning so much from you on the trail that I thought for sure you’d be able to give me a hand. It’s only a little favor, really.”

  “I probably got carried away with the brandy, but I’m of sound mind and body now and don’t plan on making the same mistake.”

  “I only need to know where he’s being held. He was arrested in Houston, but I can’t find a record of his charges. I was thinking that the TSC would have some information on him. I was hoping you could just look him up on your database or something and find out where he is.”

  “No can do, missy. Not my kind of work. You’ll have to figure some other way out of this problem your daddy’s got. Now, I gotta—”

  “Ever been to Lake Tahoe, Mr. Goldfield?” she blurted, a lure tossed in desperation.

  “Lake Tahoe? Never been. Why?” he asked, poised to bite.

  “Well, I got this friend who has a cabin on Lake Tahoe, and I thought if you’d be able to help me out with this, he could put you up for a few days,” Amelia offered.

  “That’s not a bribe you’re offering,” he said, wrestling with the bait.

  “Of course not. Just my way of thanking you for doing this small favor for me,” Amelia responded.

  “What’s your father’s name?” Caught.

  After feeding him her father’s identification information, she clarified what she needed from him. “I need to know where he’s being held, why he was arrested, and what they plan to do with him. If you’re able to give me extra information, I’ll see if my friend will let you stay an extra day or two. Do I need to repeat anything?”