Return to Apple Grove Ch. 01

"True, that." I said, chuckling. "But I contacted a Professor of Geology at Wildcat School. He was my guidance counselor my Freshman year, and he's still at the School. I asked him about it, and he brought a team of his graduate students up here to study it. Found out there's a big aquifer under the western part of this county and into the county west of us. Big enough to supply water to some industries and drinking water for all of the towns for a century or more. He contacted State A&M about it, and they confirmed it."

"And you just bought a house here." Laura said.

"Fancy that timing pattern." I said. "Just don't let Robert Mullen know, or he'll accuse me of collusion with someone for something. Seriously, I bought the house out of nostalgia, but if industries pop up around here, it should be no problem to make an overnight-stay place out of it, and my old classmate can keep the profits while she runs it."

Just then we looked up in shock. A large black Cadillac Escalade was coming up the road. It slowed down, then turned and came up the drive to our little place. The reason for our shock was who exited the vehicle. FBI Special Agent in Charge Jack Muscone was riding shotgun. Special Agent Martin Nash had been driving, and out of the back seats came Special Agent Julius Jefferson, his black bald head shining in the sun, and Special Agent Sandra Speer, her light red hair sparkling in the sun.

We greeted them, of course asking why they were here. "Oh, we were invited to Saturday's festivities, too." said Jack. "And it's a chance to get out of the City for a while."

"Uh huh." I said. "When's the DepDirector showing up?"

"Four hundred years ago..." Jack muttered. "Seriously, he should be up here by Saturday. How'd you know he was coming?"

"I didn't." I replied. "Just like I'm not guessing that you're here for other reasons... such as being my bodyguards for the weekend."

"Not much gets past you, sir." said Martin Nash.

"And I suspect..." I said, "... that there's even more going on, which is why I think your uncle is coming up. I'm already hearing stories from the old ladies about some weird farm deal."

Meanwhile I looked over at Sandra and Julius... .then at Sandra, then at Julius... then at Sandra, then at Julius. They then looked at each other with an 'Uh oh, he sees it, he knows.' look.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

My mother was having supper with her old church Women's Group, and of course took her grandchildren to show them off. Meanwhile, Laura and I went with FBI Team Lazarus back towards Rome, where they were staying. The Longhorn's Steakhouse was a good one.

"Where's Greta?" I'd asked Sandra when we were seated, her to my left, Laura to my right.

"With my aunt, my mother's sister." said Sandra. "They're staying at the DepDirector's condo in the City."

"So," I said more quietly, "you and Julius dating now?"

"More like 'friends with benefits'." said Sandra. "And of course you saw through us like nobody else possibly could." She then raised her voice and said "I wonder if the Iron Crowbar has figured out Martin is dating someone."

"Awww, that's wonderful." said Laura, who was sitting next to Martin.

"We've gone out on three dates." said Martin. "We're not married yet."

"If you were from this county, you would be... by force of shotgun." I said, drawing laughter. "And no, I didn't know. Some things do get by me."

"Speaking of this county," said Julius Jefferson, "is it better since the Battle of Providence Springs?"

"I think so." I said. "I've only been here today, and I haven't been here since that time. My mom sees changes for good and bad, and Laura thinks the town is dying."

"I would think that, but I heard some news about new industry coming in." said Laura. "What do you know about that, Jack?" She was trying to draw Muscone's knowledge out of him; she also knew he wasn't here idly.

"Not what's coming in, but what was leaving." said Jack, keeping his voice down. "BigAgraFoods. I won't say more here. We'll talk later."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

After dinner, we went to the downtown Rome area. There were a couple of bars there, one of which had an outside patio on the upper floor. We all went outside, where Jack and I got a back table while Laura talked to Martin, Sandra, and Julius at a table in front of us.

"As you know, my team has been looking hard into BigAgraFoods since the Wheeler murder and the Guardians of Justice stuff that came out." said Jack. "And that was before the Lloyd Feingold murder, which is a game-changer. Anyway, as you know, at that time and through to today, Senator Bill Nunn has been working closely with me; he really thinks something sordid is going on with this company, and with Senator Samuel Russell and Senator Roy Lester from the State to your west. The Feingold murder just confirms that, in Nunn's opinion." I nodded.

Jack continued: "Russell is hip-deep in shit, if only we can get some evidence on him. He's trying to retire, but he can't as long as Jared is Governor and would appoint his replacement. That's one reason the DepDirector and I think they're going after you so hard. Get you out of they way, then they think Jared will be easy pickings. Then Russell can resign, disappear somewhere in Florida or the Caribbean, and BigAgraFoods can hold off any real investigative threats. The Press is firmly on their side, so they truly have little to worry about."

"I agree." I said, already knowing well that all that was true. "What about the EAD? What does he think?"

"He's an old friend of the DepDirector." said Jack. "But he's not as powerful nor as influential in Washington. And there's stuff going on within the FBI, and the DOJ as well."

"And the CIA." I said.

"Well, yeah." said Jack. "But that's a different strain of virus, and the EAD's idea of protecting us from it is to make sure we keep our noses out of it." I nodded.

"Anyway," said Jack, "last May, we got word that BigAgraFoods was selling, not buying but selling land out here. It is virtually unheard of for them to sell land, anywhere, at any time. In fact, one of the hacked documents released by the Guardians of Justice described their policy of holding onto land, even if they're not farming it, and the U.S. Government subsidizes them for it."

"But they're selling some of their holdings in Fillmore County, eh?" I said. "Just between us, and don't say anything about this yet to anyone else... have you heard of the newly discovered aquifer?"

"No. What aquifer is that?" Jack asked.

I repeated the story I'd told Laura. "Providence Springs's spring came to the surface when a lightning strike broke through the rock keeping the aquifer's water in place. But if it's tapped, it'll be a huge source for drinking water for the county, and with proper conservation measures, it'll be able to supply potential industry in the area. Lack of real water sources has been this county's greatest problem for a hundred years, and now they found they're sitting on a liquid gold mine."

"Then..." said Jack, the gears turning in his head behind his beady black eyes, "then why is BigAgraFoods selling? And now?"

"Well, the deal fell through, from what I heard." I said. "I think I'll do some quiet sleuthing tomorrow, see what I can find out."

"If you go to Providence Springs, take Julius with you." Muscone said. "And that's not a request. You're beloved there, but you're still a white man in an area where the white man is regarded with suspicion... at best."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

We got home fairly late that night. My mother Phyllis was sitting on the porch as we came up. "Carole and Jim are in bed, asleep." said Phyllis. "Carole asked me a million questions about her grandfather. Then she wanted to hear stories about her daddy as a child here. Then she wanted me to tell her all the times her daddy got in trouble with her grandpa and with me. I told her you didn't get into trouble very much, and she should try to not get in trouble, either."

Laura and I both chuckled at that. Laura went on inside, and I sat down next to my mom.

"You hear any more about that land deal that didn't go through?" I asked.

"Oh yes." said my mother. "Is that why your FBI friends are here?"

"Perhaps indirectly." I said. "Seems like there are... 'strangenesses' about it."

"Oh, I daresay." said my mother. "I was also very surprised to hear the name of the trust that is buying our old house. 'Iron Crowbar Properties' is a very interesting name, would you not say, son?"

"I think it's pretty cool, if I do say so myself." I said. "Yes, it's me buying it, and putting the house in the hoops of legal steel of a trust."

"Very wise, I would say." said my mother. "And I would've thought buying that property was a nostalgic waste of your money. But it's not, is it?"

"Do the townspeople know about the aquifer?" I asked.

"Some do, but some don't really know or understand." said my mother. "Your Geology professor told several of his colleagues at several Schools, and they've studied it in the name of scientific interest. I got word from your former schoolteacher, Mrs. Talmidge, that most of the land the aquifer is under belongs to BigAgraFoods, and they're keeping it very hush-hush. Not the first time they've kept secrets, eh, son?"

"You got that right, Mom." I said. "Okay, let's stop avoiding it: Elizabeth. Dr. Eckhart. Judaism."

"I think I spoke too harshly, earlier." said my mother. "But Jonas Oldeeds hated Jews and Judaism, and I think he influenced your father about that. Elizabeth remembered what her grandmother, your father's mother, told her. Eckhart embraced Judaism, which is one reason he and your father were estranged. For right or wrong, your father was a very Christian man, with no tolerance for anything else. Elizabeth exploited that when she became rebellious."

"Kind of like Bobby Fischer." I said. "Great chessplayer. Ethnically Jewish, but became very anti-Semitic in his words later in his life. He was part of some weird church, too, which may have influenced him. And as I'm sure you know, Jonas Oldeeds was of a weird church, to put it mildly... and he is not who I think of when I think of good Christians."

"You were raised Christian." said my mother. "Your father backed off of you a lot when he saw what happened with Elizabeth, and I think he was disappointed you were not stronger in the Faith. So what are you, son?"

My mother had never asked me that before. We'd never gotten to this point. So what to tell her? The truth.

"If Dad were alive," I said, "I'd tell him what I've always believed: that just because God gave us the New Covenant, doesn't mean He broke the Old Covenant. As to what is God? Mom, I saw a lot more of 'God' in Teresa rescuing Carole than I ever did in these so-called Men of God like Jonas Oldeeds, Steven Ikea, blah blah blah. Faith is not a church, a process, a dogma. It's what's inside each of us."

My mother was clearly disappointed with my answer; I could feel it as surely as I were feeling a vibe out of Cindy. But all she said was "Whatever you do, son, do not trust your sister. Do not let her infect you. The Devil has taken possession of her soul. Her rejection of the Faith, mocking it, took years off your father's life; I truly believe that. And she will be the death of you, if you do not see her for what she truly is."

"No doubt about that, Mom." I said. "I always keep my eyes firmly upon her when she is around me."

"Good." my mother said. "Goodnight, son." She got up and went inside, leaving me with the night...

Part 4 - Closings and Openings

At 9:00am Thursday, June 28th, I appeared at the offices of Grove & Partners, P.C. I was met by my attorney Mike G. Todd, who'd traveled up from Town the night before and had stayed in Rome overnight. Mike had been with Grove & Partners the last time I was here, and I'd gotten him the job in my Town & County after Hamilton Phillips fired him for helping me.

"Nothing new on the Mullen front." Mike said as we waited for the others to come in. "Word I'm getting is that he's going to wait until after July 4th, then all hell is going to break loose."

"Bring it on." I said. "I'm tired of waiting."

The attorney Taylor G. Phillips came in. He was the nephew of Hamilton Phillips, and had withstood the scrutiny of the FBI after Hamilton had fallen. His face and tall, lean posture reminded me of Arnold G. Cash of the 'Lady Ironside' case.

We went through the paperwork, and it seemed routine. "When researching the title deed," said Phillips, "I found the name Troy on it already. Same man that owned this law firm before selling to my uncle. Is he a relative of yours?"

"He's my father." I said. Phillips looked a bit surprised.

"Oh, okay." he said. "So, is this purchase for nostalgic reasons?"

"That's part of it." I said.

"You're fortunate to get it." said Phillips. "We had an offer on the table, but it fell through when that farm deal fell through."

"I heard about that." I said, sounding as nonchalant as possible. "What happened there? The farm deal, I mean..."

"Everything was going fine, but there was a project a couple of States over, called 'Pine Valley'." said Phillips. "They found severe contamination there, which had been covered up but was discovered by State authorities there. This is certainly not as big as that was, but that case scared a lot of banks, and nowadays they like to make sure."

"So the Providence Springs consortium that was going to buy it had some tests run, and had a farmer look at the property." continued Phillips. "He didn't like what he saw, and the tests came back suggesting a potential problem with the fertilizer that had been recently used. So the deal was called off. And as a result, the person that had bid on this house you're buying suddenly withdrew his bid. We don't know if he was going to work for the new owners of the farm property or what, but he pulled his bid."

"I see. Lucky me." I said. "By the way, was any other property contaminated? Bad batch of fertilizer everywhere, or just that property?"

"I don't know." said Phillips. "They weren't selling the other land, so I don't know if any other tests were run. Maybe they did internal testing."

"That'd make sense." I said. "Oh and yes, I heard about that Pine Valley case. Very nasty, what went on there. Okay, so the trust for my new house is all set, and bulletproof?"

"In the legal sense, yes." said Phillips. Mike G. Todd agreed. We signed off on all the paperwork, I presented the cashier's check buying the property, and that was that.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

As we came out of the lawyer's office, which was on the northwest corner of the Courthouse Square area, Laura was waiting for us, Carole in tow.

"Jim's with his grandmother." said Laura. "Carole wants to see the Police Station."

"Yeah!" said Carole, who apparently had been pouting about it.

"Well, then," I said with Rudistan-'ish' joviality, "why don't you and I go to the Police Station, Carole. Mike, thanks for your help. Are you going home, or staying around?"

"I'm going to visit some old friends and family." said Mike. "Dr. Fredricson, would you care to join me for a late breakfast at the Diner?"

"It's good food." I said, having eaten there before. Laura was persuaded, and kept on walking with Mike as I turned into the Police Station on the southwest corner of the square... which was not like the Town & County's Courthouse Square. Apple Grove's had the Courthouse in the middle, with four streets surrounding it, and buildings on three sides on the other side of the streets. To the west, between Grove & Partners and the AGPD Station, was a park with greenspace, walkways, monuments, etc.

Going into the Police Station, I was warmly greeted by a number of people there who knew me from the last time I'd been there. And of course there was Leanne Wisocky, who'd taken my virginity in my halcyon days of youth.

"Hey, Don!" she called out. "Who's this lovely young lady?"

"This is my daughter Carole." I said. "Carole, say hello to Leanne. She was in school with me."

"Hel-lo." said Carole.

"So you're promoted, I see." I said, noting the Captain's bars on her collars.

"Yep." Leanne said. "Captain. Assistant Chief."

"How's Chief Sims doing?" I asked.

"Oh, he retired last year." said Leanne. "Our new Chief is---"

"Well, if it ain't Donny Troy!" exclaimed a voice. A man beginning to gain weight, with a roundish head, brown hair and big mustache, like Griswold's except it was more droopy, came in. "The Iron Crowbar himself!"

"Donny Hall, you old rascal." I said in reply, shaking his hand. He had been a year behind Elizabeth at Apple Grove High. "Made Chief. Congratulations."

"Thank you, thank you." said Hall. "Come on into my office. You too, Captain." We went on inside, Carole waving at the Officers in the front room.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Yeah, Chief Sims retired last year." said Chief Hall, his voice brisk and jovial as it always had been. "Greenwood became Sheriff again after Spaulding was found dead. I'd been in the Police Department some years ago, then went to the Fire Department when they had shortages. I was Assistant Chief there, so they pushed me back over here, promoted Leanne, then promoted the other people behind her. And it'll probably stay like that until we retire."

"Oh, I dunno." I said. "I've heard there might be some new industry coming in."

"Well, maybe, maybe not." said Chief Hall. "Leanne, what do you know about that?"

"Not much more than you do, Chief." said Leanne. "Some of those nutty professor types got our hopes up about a water supply, but it may not be all that big a deal and may not help us all that much. BigAgraFoods was selling some farmland to some young men from Providence Springs, and that spooked some people; why would they be selling if there's a water supply and industry coming in?"

"Well, the deal fell through, didn't it?" I said. "So what are they doing with the property now?"

"Nothing, I guess." said Leanne. "It had some mildly contaminated fertilizer on it. The State A&M agricultural tech people are studying the property, seeing if they can reclaim it for farm use, but otherwise it's just sitting fallow. Good thing it's a relatively small piece of land."

Just then there was an urgent knock on the door. "Chief!" said a Sergeant, looking in. "We just got a call of a body being found south of town!"

Part 5 - The Crime Scene

I rode with Leanne in her car. I didn't have time to find Laura, so Carole was still with me. We rode down the South Road out of town, which followed the railroad tracks that had come from the west and turned south at the road as it came out of Apple Grove.

There were already a couple of squad cars at the scene, and a surprisingly large crowd of observers. As we came up, I saw a man in a brown suit, lighter brown shirt, and fedora hat lying face down. He'd been shot in the back, and then the back of the head.

"Daddy, look!" Carole said, fidgeting in my grasp as she pointed at the body, getting everyone's attention.

"Shhh, Carole." I said.

"But Daddy! Look at his shoes!" Carole protested loudly. "He didn't walk in them, they're not even scratched!"

I looked down. The soles of the man's brown shoes were a light tan. And they did not have a scratch on them. Brand spanking new.

"She's right." said a Detective, who'd knelt down and examined the shoes with a magnifying glass. "Not scuffed at all."

"Bag 'em as evidence." I said.

Four years old. She's only four years old, and she's already made an observation of that quality, I thought to myself. "What else do you see, Carole?" I asked.

"He's a re-por-ter." said Carole. I saw how she saw that; his badge marked 'PRESS' was partially visible on his belt. "Daddy, why isn't there more blood? Didn't he bleed?"