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More lies.

Deak would not have approved of my actions. He would have said, “Hutch, didn't you learn anything from the last time you tried to protect someone's reputation?” Apparently not. The difference here was that there were only three people who knew the truth. Two were dead and I'm very good at keeping secrets.When I got home after my interview with Barbara, I called my mom in Florida and relayed my story to her. Except for an occasional, “Oh, my,” she listened in silence. When I concluded by telling her I had told the story to a newspaper reporter and that my political career could likely end, she asked, “So, it was Adrian who threw the stone, or the Indian thing. Not you, right?”

“Right. I was there, but I didn't throw it.”

“That's good, very good.”

With that, she had absolved me of any wrongdoing. I wasn't sure the voters would see it the same way.

The story that began on Chestnut Ridge in 1971 would finally conclude. The last chapter would be set into motion on the front page of the Akron
Beacon Journal
the following morning. That was a certainty. How it would end for me, Congressman Botticelli, Botticelli Junior, or the Nashes, I hadn't a clue.

Strangely, I wasn't overly concerned. There was something incredibly liberating about the future being out of my control. I closed my eyes and once again could breathe in the aroma of the cherry blossoms on Chestnut Ridge.