Chapter Sixteen
Frank was eager to show off his place and he hurried to clear the table and left the dishes in the sink. “It’s pretty light out so let’s us take a little ride.” His bright salesman’s face was as eager as a boy’s. He grabbed his coat and told Dave to meet him at his truck, a beat up old Ford pickup with four-wheel drive. He had installed chains on all four wheels to help him get up and down the mountain paths.
The terrain was rough and beautiful. “I got my own bulldozer and cut these roads myself,” Frank said, waving his arm in front of him as he steered the truck around large rocks and downed trees. “See that pond? I put that in about ten years ago. It’s got some nice bass in it and some big old catfish that clean up the bottom.”
“Pretty nice job,” Dave said, not really knowing what a nice job was in pond making. It was ice covered and nearly black in the gray light under the leafless trees. “Can you skate on it?”
“Only if you don’t mind getting wet. The ice around here is never thick enough to skate on. I’ve seen deer try it and fall in. One drowned a couple of years ago.” Frank jerked the wheel to avoid a tree that had fallen near the pond. “Damn! Just missed that one!”
Frank drove to the top of the mountain and parked near a rocky outcrop that towered over the valley. “Come on. Look at this.”
He and Dave walked to the rock and looked down over the fields below where Frank’s cattle were huddled and grazing on a mound of hay he had opened for them. “You come here in the summer and I’ve got bees for honey. Damn bears get at ‘em now and then, but they leave me enough to give away at Christmas. You be careful up here. It’s a long way down.” He pointed at the lip of the rock. “Pretty slick there near the edge.”
“How long have you had this place.” Dave asked.
“Oh, long time. I started putting it together over twenty years ago. Nobody wanted the mountain land because it’s hard to farm, so this part was cheap. The fields down below were expensive.”
“What kind of work do you do?”
Frank’s face hardened and he looked at Dave. “Well, it’s hard to say. You might say I’m in the security business. We’ll leave it at that.”
“As in police?”
“As in it’s not something we’ll talk about. Now, let’s go down to see the girls.” He motioned to the cattle. “So, what are you planning to do to kill time while you’re up here?”
“I don’t know. I’d like to work the story over the phone and maybe have my girlfriend come to visit.” It had been awhile since he had called Elena his girlfriend and he was not sure she would agree that she was.
“So long as you don’t tell everyone where you are. You’re ass deep in something, you know.” Frank drove down the mountain, sliding on icy spots, and trying to stay clear of the edges of the road that could tip them down into the valley, assuming they weren’t stopped by the trees on the way down. He was stone-faced as he drove, shifting gears and controlling the truck, and he left Dave in silence and white knuckles. The mountain gave way to the fields and Frank pulled up next to a small silo next to which several cattle were eating hay that had been left for them. “I want to show you something,” he said, climbing out of the truck.
Dave followed him into the silo and saw what appeared to be some kind of control center with computers and communications gear in racks around a circular desk. “This is what the military would call a classified installation.” Frank waved his hand around the room. “We kind of keep track of things here. This is not an official government operation, if you get my drift, but we work closely with certain people under certain circumstances, one of which this is. You are not authorized to describe this in any way in your reporting. Understood?”
Dave nodded before he considered what he was agreeing to. He gaped at the equipment. The computer screens were alive with what appeared to be audio tracks, the same kind of tracks the computers at Now News displayed when recordings were being made and edited. The lines were moving, an indication that recordings were underway. “What is this place?”
“We can target certain individuals and monitor them, where they are and where they’re going, and what they’re saying and who they’re saying it to. That’s what you’re seeing. We’re monitoring some of the people who we think might be involved in whatever is going on with you and killer or killers of the priests. I wanted to show you this to let you know that you’re not alone and we’re not just sitting around sucking our thumbs.”
“You guys have any more of these around the farm?”
“If you need to know, you will. I need to tell you that the penalties for revealing information about this place without authorization can be severe, so I need your word that you won’t be reporting this or telling your girlfriend or your boss what you’re looking at here.”
“You have it.” Dave wondered whether it was a promise he could keep. He walked over to one of the screens. “Can we turn the sound up on this?”
“So you can listen? No. It’s probably just jabber anyway. Have you ever listened in on a phone call? It’s all ‘Hey, what’s up? Nothin’. How about you? Nothin’.’ I brought you here to let you know we’ve got a handle on this. The rest us up to us.”
“Okay, two questions. Who’s us? And do you guys know who’s killing the priests?”
“We think we know who might be involved and who we are is best left alone for right now.”
“So you know who you’re hiding me from?”
“We know who to watch out for and we think you’re safe here.”
“Let me ask the obvious question. Why don’t you just go get them?”
“Things aren’t quite that simple.” Frank attempted a laugh but it fell flat. “Enough of this. Let’s go to town and get some lunch.”
Sperryville is a village that contains a few antique stores to interest the weekenders who come for the views or to hike Old Rag Mountain. One of the stores claims to make antiques daily. There’s a small post office and a couple of cafes. At one end of the main street is a store that sells kitch, “genuine country” items, and thousands of things that no one in their right mind would buy unless they were out for a Sunday drive in a picturesque setting; small figures of stuffed animals, tiny moccasins, glass apples and the like.
Frank drove down the main street like a fellow running for mayor, pointing out the sites, as scarce as they were, with a pride that belied his true interest in Rappahannock County. He pulled into a spot in front of a café whose sign was faded but Dave made out the word “Homemade” on it. There was a counter on the right and some Formica-topped tables on the left. The far wall was lined with well-worn wooden booths. Old Coca Cola signs and license plates from the fifties were attached to the walls.
“Get the grilled cheese and the soup,” Frank said, taking a seat at the counter. “It’s just like grandma made if she worked in a place like this.” He waved to a stout older woman behind the counter. “They don’t have any sushi and they don’t have any vegan stuff. Meat and potatoes. Meatloaf on Wednesdays complete with mashed potatoes and gravy and canned green beans. Nothing better.” He displayed his wide salesman’s smile.
The woman approached with two glasses of ice water. “Hey, Frank. Soup today is vegetable and the pie is apple. We’re out of the cake.”
“Soup and grilled cheese for me. Coffee.” He turned to Dave.
“Me, too.” Dave was in no mood to read the menu. “Ice tea.”
“See these folks? They’re the best on earth. They work hard, they pay their bills, they don’t cause trouble. It’s people like this that people like me work to protect. You guys in the media need to spend more time reporting on real folks, not the shitbirds that turn up in the paper.”
“I’m sure you’ve heard it before, but we report on the shitbirds because we assume that they’re the exception, not the norm. We assume that everybody else is what you call real people. So, in reality, we’re optimists.” It was an old argument that even reporters were sick of but something had to b
e said and that was a go-to response to the question of why the news media don’t spend much time on what’s good and lots of time on what’s bad.
“Well, now you have a real exception, don’t you? Somebody wants to except you right into an early grave. Hell, one of them might be in here having lunch, looking like a yokel in a tractor hat.” Frank winked at Dave.
“That’s why you’re here with me,” Dave said. “You’re my protector.”
“Hell, it might be me.”
The soup and sandwiches were placed in front of them and the woman left the check under Frank’s plate. “Take it to the front when you’re ready,” she said.
Dave looked at the others in the café and wondered about their lives. He had a habit of creating fantasies about strangers, speculating about their private lives. He was taken with the idea that the plainest, most normal-looking people could be leading exciting or even sordid private lives. A stout middle-aged woman wearing an old-fashioned hat sat across from an older man wearing a tractor company hat on the back of his head. Neither spoke as they ate. Dave wondered about their sex life and whether they had even engaged in anything debased or perverted. Perhaps they spent their evenings murdering strangers or engaging in ancient sexual rituals. He had a friends, an older couple newly married, who had confessed to him that they had a taste for pagan sexual practices involving animal skins and crystal pyramids. They also grew marijuana in their basement, so they would not be classified as law abiding citizens in any event. But they had professional-level jobs and wore upper middle-class clothing, so no one would suspect them of anything abnormal. Maybe it was the same with the couple eating the soup of the day. He doubted it.
He scanned the room for potential mass murderers who were capable of torturing and stabbing priests but all he saw were country people and a few suburbanites out for a day of antiquing. He was surprised at how many people had braved the weather, although it was warming and the roads were clear.
“Ready?” Frank stood up and grabbed the check.
“Sure.”
Frank paid at the front after leaving a five dollar tip, something that would be noted by the waitress, who usually counted tips in change. The two men climbed into Frank’s pickup and headed back up the mountain.
“Looks like it’s warming up,” Frank said, honking at the cattle that were standing in the creek. “There’s some good walking if you’re interested in that kind of thing. For me, it helps clear the mind. Just make sure you don’t get lost. I’ll leave you at the cabin and come up when dinner’s ready around seven.”
Dave left his shoes by the door and flopped onto the bed, lost for the afternoon. He didn’t particularly feel like going for a walk in the woods. He felt like working the streets as a reporter and he wondered what was happening back in the newsroom. He called Sid, who picked up after one ring.
“How’s life?”
“Boring. Have you ever been left in the woods?”
“Not since I was a baby and was raised by wolves. How’s the company?”
“Weird and interesting in ways I can’t talk about, if you get my meaning.”
“I talked to O’Neil about visitors and he says it’s okay if we’re all discrete, whatever that’s supposed to mean. I thought discrete meant you didn’t get caught fooling around on your wife.”
“I talked to Elena this morning about it. Okay if she comes down?”
“Yeah, she mentioned it, that’s why I called O’Neil. She knows she can’t tell anyone. We’ll be the only ones who know. I’ll be coming down myself in a day or two. How are things between you two?”
“Hell if I know. Stay tuned.”
“Let me give you a word of advice. Nobody needs any drama right now. The last thing we all want to face is a freak-out over a lovers’ quarrel. Don’t invite her down there if you’re gonna send her back up here throwing things around and hollering that you’re a dick. People don’t think clearly when they’re hysterical.”
“I know. Any word on the reason I’m here?”
“O’Neil is up to something but he won’t say what it is. Our station in Chicago is looking into some links and the reporter there is working some leads. You being in hiding is the big story right now, even bigger than the murders. I think some of your competitors are hoping you’ll be next. Eat the wounded, that’s our motto.”
“Want me to file?”
“Damn right. See what you can work up. Maybe a think piece about your situation or a backgrounder about how you got into the story or, how about this?, a think piece about Father Phil and how his murder has changed the narrative about homelessness, dropping in some stuff about your angle.” A think piece was reporter commentary that added feeling or even opinion to the facts of a story to flesh it out and give it context. Hardened street reporters thought of them as another way to pick lint out of navels and resisted them. Dave was not of that opinion.
“Let me see what I can work up. Maybe I can do daily things to give me something to do.”
“Let’s see how it goes. By the way, Elena’s gone home. I have her working mornings. She won’t be off for a few days, so don’t be tempted to get her to call in sick or anything, no matter how much you would like to, ah, enjoy her charms.”
“You have a dirty mind.”
“And you’re alone in a cabin. Get to work and call Gabriel when you’re ready to file. I’ll tell him to edit it for content so we can keep the loop small.” The line went dead.
Dave opened his laptop and was surprised to see that Frank had an open Wi-Fi network, so he checked the sites of the newspapers he read, the wires, and Now News, which had his photo prominently displayed on its home page. He even managed to log in to his account and wrote a think piece about being part of a story. Then he took a nap, promising himself that he would call Elena when he woke up.