Old School Ch. 05: Danville

"That's the woman who saved your life. She's The Apostle," she said.

Now I gasped and my jaw dropped. I didn't know whether to hug her, to cry, to bow down in appreciation. I didn't know what to say as the woman approached. Kass and I stood there unable to find words.

The woman stopped directly in front of us, both children quiet, obedient and clinging to her. The apostle removed her sunglasses as did Kass. The older woman's weary eyes looked directly into Kass's.

"Miss, I come to pay off the damage I done to your store," she said. She removed her hands from the children's grip and opened a worn, brown leather tote bag slung from her left shoulder and pulled an envelope from it.

I could tell from Kass's trembling hands and her quivering smile that she was losing control. She began to sniffle and reached forward and embraced the Apostle, much to her surprise.

"Thank you," was all Kass could say. And she repeated it several times. All of which caused my own composure to crumble.

The Apostle allowed her arms to close tentatively around Kass, even though the puzzled look on her face showed that she didn't grasp our reaction. The children stood back a respectful few steps, watching with even more confusion. She comforted Kass as she cried.

When Kass found her voice again, what she said was simple.

"Ma'am, I don't know your actual name, but I want you to meet the man whose life you saved. This," she said, turning toward me, "this is Les Walker. Les, this lady is The Apostle."

Instantly, she comprehended her emotional reception.

"Oh, my Lord," she said as she moved toward me and we embraced. "Oh, thank Jesus that you made it. Y'all don't know how hard I prayed."

"You made that possible. If it wasn't for you — your bravery, your brains — I'd be dead," I said.

"Ma'am, whatever is in that envelope, it doesn't belong here. You've already given me more than I could ever ask for. You gave me back Les," Kass said.

"But I ruined a lot of your merchandise and damaged your property that day, and I've always been accountable for what I've done."

The two children stood patiently together behind her, watching without comprehending what the three emotional adults before them were doing. It occurred to me that a city sidewalk was not the proper venue for this moment.

"Ma'am, it's noon. We all need lunch. Would it be OK to talk a bit more down the street while we get a bite to eat?" I said.

"Great idea," Kass said. "I'm going to guess that those are your grandchildren."

"Yes ma'am. This here is Kendall. He just turned eight," she said, proudly nodding to the little boy to her right, "and this is Kylie. She's five."

"Five and a half," she said, correcting her grandmom.

"Well, I know a restaurant right over there where they can fix these two whatever their hearts desire and the most incredible ice cream dessert you can imagine if y'all like," Kass said. The children nodded and smiled.

"What do you say, grandmom?" I said. "And it's my treat. I insist."

The Apostle looked back and forth at Kass and me, her pride clearly wrestling with the instinct to treat her grandkids. Finally, she nodded to me, still afraid to smile. "I reckon that'll be OK."

▼ ▼ ▼

We got the largest table outdoors on the sidewalk café area of Lou & Emma's — circular, with six chairs. The Apostle sat with one child to her immediate left and the other to her right. Their hunger was plain: Kass instructed the staff to go all out to pamper her VIP guests, to bring them rolls, butter and jam to the table as appetizers. The children's restraint and etiquette were immaculate.

"May we," they asked The Apostle.

"Yes, but share," she told them.

They buttered their rolls and slathered them with plum, blueberry and strawberry jams, all procured from local farms, and wolfed them down, but dared not reach for another, though they looked longingly at them.

"Kylie, Kendall, those are all for you if Grandmom says it's OK. And there's more where those came from."

They looked at The Apostle, pleading for permission.

She looked at them and the ethic of self-denial that seemed to have been a lifelong trait softened. Her unsmiling countenance gave way. She nodded. "I reckon it's OK." With that, they each took another roll from the basket, buttered them and meticulously applied the fruit preserves. "But don't spoil your meal," she added.

"Ma'am, I understand that there are restraints on sharing your identity considering what you have put at risk for law enforcement," I said. "I understand if you can't, but I hope we can address you by something a little more conversational than 'Apostle,'" I said.

She took a deep breath.

"Y'all already know I was helping the government with all that business with Eyes of Ebenezer, but I just can't do that no more. I told the FBI I have to back away for the sake of these babies," she said, her eyes focused at a point on the white linen tablecloth.

"We had to get away. You know how close things got that day a few weeks ago. I can't risk that no more. I'm proud I could help bring them folks down. What they was doing ain't right, and that they was doing it and calling it God's will ... well, that was plain evil," she said.

Her jaw clenched and she swallowed.

"My name's Ruth. Ruth Mae Rothermel. Maiden name's Brewer," she said, pausing for a moment to gather the will to proceed. "Elmer Brewer, he's my older brother. That's how come I know so much about that church."

I reached over and took her hand.

"Ruth, I read your post on Reddit months ago. I didn't know if it was true, and if so how much. But I knew that if it was true, this is a person very close to the inside of this enterprise. And now it all makes sense. What I didn't know at the time was how much courage and character that person had by risking everything to bring these people to justice," I said.

"You are named for a woman in the Old Testament who is known for her courage, her determination, her compassion and her goodness. And I can see from your actions that you are a woman of real faith. I can see, too, why seeing someone who was close to you perverting true faith to serve evil and greedy ends offended you and you took a righteous stand against it," Kass said.

"Ruth, I want you to listen to me: you owe me nothing. I could never sufficiently compensate you for your actions that afternoon. You save that money and use it on these children and yourself," Kass said. "I will not accept it."

Once Ruth Rothermel decides on a course of action, it's hard to dissuade her. I could see that in just the hour or so since we had met. A hard life of limited means and constant tribulations had not broken her, but it had forced upon her a rigid discipline that few people can ever achieve. It took Kass an hour to convince Ruth that she owed Felson's on Main nothing, and, in the end, Ruth nodded her reluctant acquiescence to another woman with an equally strong constitution.

The children had finished a lunch of fried chicken, garlic-roasted green beans and creamy mashed Russet potatoes whipped together with a hint of cream cheese, scallions and seasoned lightly with sea salt. Now they were trying to find room for a large helping of homemade real vanilla ice cream — churned on-site that very morning — ladled with fudge sauce.

Now that we had learned something of her past, it seemed like a good time to find out a little about Ruth's plans prospectively. She had noted that she had to get out of northern Kentucky where she sensed constant suspicion and even hostility: whether real or imagined, it made working there by day and trying to sleep there at night impossible.

"We're going down to Georgia for a bit," she said. "I got a high school friend lives down by Marietta who says she thinks she can get me on at the smoke alarm factory where she works as a shift supervisor."

"What kind of work do you do," Kass asked.

She had done a little of everything: stocked supermarket shelves, waited tables, tended bar, janitorial work. She had worked as a mechanic with another of her brothers back in Henry County, the brother her family had banished for reasons never stated and who was buried in a pauper's grave in Chicago. The job she just left was bookkeeping for a small business that does windshield replacements.

"But the best job I ever had was just outside of Lexington where I worked for a veterinarian who specialized in horses," she said. Her severe exterior softened as she spoke of the trust placed in her by a veterinarian who was sought after by the leading stables in the world's most prestigious breeding and training ground for thoroughbreds.

"Dr. Ben let me do pretty much everything and he was such a good teacher. I started out doing things like scheduling appointments for him, ordering clinical supplies and even veterinary drugs and keeping his inventories stocked. Then one day, he said he needed help with a mare who was about to foal, and he took me with him," Ruth said.

Her face was transformed by the memory of that time. She was staring not only into the distance but back in time, recalling what seemed the happiest days of her life.

"Once you've been around those animals, you never forget it. They've got souls just like we do. They're so beautiful and powerful and majestic, but it's their eyes. They can look at a person and know right away who they really are at their core," she said. "It's impossible to lie to a horse."

"Watching that mare give birth that day was the most wonderful thing I ever saw other than when I had my boy, Zeke. He was a little boy when I started working for Dr. Ben, and he admired Dr. Ben like he was the daddy he never knew. He let me bring Zeke with us out on some of those stable calls. I thought for all the world that Zeke was going to make a veterinarian himself."

Ruth stopped and the sense of sadness that seemed to pervade her returned.

"How long did you work for Dr. Ben?" Kass said.

"Worked for him for seven years, give or take," Ruth said. "Then one day, Dr. Ben was in the office, slumped over at his desk and died. Brain aneurysm. Wasn't another vet in the practice so they had to close it. So me and Zeke moved Francisville and I took a job at the Piggly Wiggly. Been in that town ever since."

I could see the wheels spinning in Kass's business brain.

"Tell me a little about your bookkeeping experience."

Ruth described now she kept track of accounts receivable and collections, expenses and accounts payable, keeping business permits and taxes current along with insurance premiums managing inventory and payroll. She used a specialized version of commercially available business management software to post monthly profit and loss statements and, from them, post quarterly state and federal income tax filings.

Kass drilled down a little more on her proficiency with the software. She asked about how she interacted with the business owners over financial matters. I could see where this was going. With her acquisition of several pieces of commercial real estate she hoped to renovate and lease in a gentrifying part of town, Felson Enterprises was growing at a rate that made it impractical for Kass to handle all the back-office operations. Millie was helpful in helping her manage the business operations of her anchor property, Felson's on Main, but the other pieces other growing footprint were demanding impossibly large chunks of Kass's time.

"Ruth, what if I told you that you might not have to go to Georgia or anywhere else. I'm looking for a bookkeeper for my businesses right here, right now, and I'd love to consider you," Kass said.

"Miss Felson, that's very sweet of you and I appreciate it, but I don't know ...," she said.

"Is there something that I might be able to do to help you? Some legal obstacle maybe? I am a lawyer."

Her eyes darted around, and she looked at the children, still nibbling at their sundaes.

"I ... I just don't know if it's far enough," Ruth said.

"Tell me a little more about that," Kass prodded. "Far enough from ...?"

"From them. From Elmer's people. They put the worst of them, including Elmer, in jail, but they can't arrest all of them. In fact, there's no way to tell who all of them are. Where there's somebody with a heart full of meanness and judgment, that could be one of Elmer's people," Ruth said. "And they don't forget."

"Miss Felson, they've been out in front of your store. They saw me walk in there that day. And if one of them recognized me living here and going to work at your place — and that ain't hard to do in a town this small — that could be bad for me and these babies and, even worse, bad for you," Ruth said. "I appreciate you, I truly do, but ..."

Something about that exchange brought an obscure memory to mind; something that, under the circumstances, took on urgency.

"Y'all excuse me. I need to make a quick phone call. Don't leave without me."

I took a short walk down Main Street as I placed the call.

"Red Label! What's up?"

▼ ▼ ▼

I recalled vaguely from my Kentucky history class back at Dunbar High in Versailles that the state's first capital was Danville. So when I was reminded of that fact by one of the many brass historical markers in the city's Constitution Square on a brilliant Sunday afternoon as Kass and I toured her town on bicycles, there was a ring of familiarity to it.

What I had not known and learned from the exhibits in the preserved historical area in the heart of Danville was that it was home to Kentucky's first courthouse, that the state's first constitution was written here, that the first U.S. Post Office west of the Alleghenies was put here and it was home to the first state-supported school for the deaf. Nor was I aware that Danville is actually older than Kentucky. It was established in 1787 by an act of the Virginia Legislature when that state stretched westward all the way to the Mississippi River and its northern boundary was the Ohio River and, at one point, Pennsylvania.

"I see how this place grows on a person," I said as we strolled through the park, filled with historical structures and statues, a mild breeze scented with fresh blooms on this afternoon with temperatures warm enough that Kass wore shorts and a sleeveless top for the first time in 2023.

"It's got a past. It's got charm. It almost seems to talk to you," she said. "It's got culture. It's got poor people and rich ones. It's large enough to have a good local business ecology, but it's small enough that it's not overrun by the national big-box store chains other than Walmart. We've got factories and we've got professional office parks and a level of healthcare and hospitals that you don't find in cities this size anymore."

"You're a one-woman Chamber of Commerce," I said.

"Well, I guess some people live everywhere and still have nowhere to call home. I'm lucky I guess. We're both from Versailles, but this," she said, her arm sweeping the vista around us, "this is my town now."

We strolled around the park for at least an hour, unhurried and arm-in-arm. The day seemed blessed, from the cloudless sky to the Presbyterian sermon we had heard that morning.

We were comforted in the knowledge that Ruth Rothermel and her children had rested well in a two-bedroom suite at the Hampton Inn as our guests before setting off this morning for Goodlettsville, Tennessee. She had a Monday job interview with a very interested Karl Blankship whose top office manager of his veterinary practice had just tendered notice that she was not returning from maternity leave she began at the end of March. His suburban practice included very few equines and no thoroughbreds, but the diversity of experience Ruth had was almost impossible to find in his line of work.

In the park on this perfect afternoon, locals we encountered knew her on a first-name basis and vice versa. She spent much of her time introducing me to people, some of whom — like the shopkeeper, Estelle, the day before — had heard Kass had a gentleman friend and seemed genuinely pleased to meet me.

"Word gets around in Danville, doesn't it?" I said.

"Yeah. It's still a small town and, as I told you yesterday, folks will talk. I like that people take the time to reach out and know you. It's a little unsettling, sometimes, how much they know about you."

"Why don't we ride by some of the properties you're buying," I said as we unchained our bikes from the rack at one end of the park.

"I guess so," she said. "Some aren't in the most scenic part of town and getting there isn't that bicycle friendly, but we can do that. What do you want to see first?"

"You mentioned some properties near the train depot?"

"OK. Follow me." She led me on a zig-zag path that seemed to run south and then east and down a slight incline until we turned a corner and saw the restored depot that looked almost like something off a movie studio back lot. Across a parking lot and a street were an array of old, boarded-up three- and four-story brick edifices that, a century ago, must have bustled as processing and distribution points for Burley and dark-fired tobacco when this region of Kentucky was the golden buckle on the Tobacco Belt.

"Wow. That's a hell of a lot of square footage," I said as we halted our ride for a moment in front of the largest of them.

"Oh, that's not what I'm buying," she said. "That stuff's all been optioned or is in use by Centre for various things, and it's on the National Register of Historic Places, which makes it a huge pain in the ass to try to acquire. What I'm converting are a couple of smaller buildings that housed business operations or, in one case, was where they weighed tobacco coming in."

We walked our bikes up a short incline where two charming, two-story brick structures with magnificent, arched front windows on both floors that sat about 40 feet apart from each other.

"They're amazing, Kass," I said. "Any way to get inside?"

"Well, I don't own them yet. Closing's in a couple of weeks. That's when I send in the renovation crews," she said.

"You already have tenants?" I asked.

"Not yet. They're not ready to show."

"How do you know what to design it for? What sort of business do you envision appealing to?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. I've had folks inquire about maybe using it as an art studio. The Chamber suggested thinking about multi-use for, like, a teleworking site where a company could rent an office and have people who live here telecommute. Another restaurant owner was thinking about opening a trendy bar in one of them but got cool to that idea when he found out that I'd made a successful offer on it. Guess he doesn't want to lease the space from a competing restaurant owner."

I lowered the kickstand to my bike and began walking around the smaller building on the left as you're facing them, peering through the dusty first-floor windows at the empty space inside. I could see an ornate banister on a staircase leading to the second floor. For some reason, what appeared to be an old Seth Thomas Regulator clock seven or eight feet tall remained in the structure, unworking but seemingly in good shape.

"Oh, I'm dying to get inside this. Any way the realtor could swing by and unlock it for us?"

"Are you serious? On Sunday?"

"If I didn't have a must-attend meeting in Cincinnati tomorrow morning, I'd wait til then, but ..."

"What excites you so much about this building?" she said.

"Because I love it. I think I might be your first tenant."

I had never seen a blank, uncomprehending look on the face of the whip-smart Kass Felson. This is a woman who plays chess three moves ahead.

"Huh?" she said, her brow furrowed in confusion. "How could ... what do you mean?"