Gathering String (32 page)

“Swede was my father's first stand-out player. But it was more than just a good coach finding a good athlete. My dad knew how much Swede wanted to play and how hard his father, Carl, made that for him. Dad wasn't really quite old enough to be Swede's father, but he did kind of fill in the big gaps for a teenager who really needed a guiding hand. Carl was a sad case, damaged by the Vietnam War and using alcohol to self-medicate. At his best, he was a neglectful father. At his worst, well, he was a broken man, and living with him was hard."

"So hard that the new governor didn't invite his own father to his inaugural?" Sam didn't look up as he asked the question. He'd read the clips and seen the pictures online. Carl was conspicuously absent.

"No, that wasn't it," Jack shook his head. "That would have hurt Augusta, and Swede is very careful of his mother's feeling. No, it was some kind of family obligation that kept Carl away. I don't remember the details exactly, but it tied Carl up for that first inaugural, and he'd passed away by Swede's second. You know, it's a real testament to Swede's strength of character that he became the man he is."

Sam wasn't interested in pursuing that idea and steered Jack back on course again. "Let's go back to your relationship with him."

"Well, Swede was out here on the farm a lot in his youth, and we all got pretty close to him. When the accident happened, it hit Swede almost as hard as it did me. And then things kind of did a flip. Swede did for me what my father did for him. He was an example to follow. I watched him get on with things, even though he was suffering. And he read me well. Swede knew when I needed someone to listen, and he knew when I needed to be left alone, and he knew when I needed a kick in the pants.”

“What kind of kicking did he do?”

Jack smiled, remembering. “Oh, he rode me pretty hard about using what I’d inherited wisely. I was legally an adult, which, looking back on it, was absurd. But my folks never figured that they’d go together with both my siblings. It would have been better if there’d been a trust set up or something, but there wasn’t. Just a lot of land and more money from their life insurance than most kids that age dream of. Swede advised me, guided me on investments, which saved my ass. I didn’t have a clue what to do. I’d bring my buddies from the team out here, and with no parents, things would start to get wild. Somehow Swede always knew when trouble was brewing, and he’d show up and ride herd on us. God only knows what would have happened if he hadn’t.

“One of the dumbest things I did was buy a little Jag. I thought I was something in that car, and it sure could go. I got two speeding tickets the first month I had it. And when I got nailed a third time, going 142 down the blacktop out by Nyman one night, they jerked my license. I was pretty outraged and started making noises about getting a lawyer to fight it. Man, the next thing I knew, Swede was banging on the door of my dorm room. He had me in tears, signing the title over to him within ten minutes. Eventually he did give me the money he got for the Jag, which was quite a bit less than I paid for it.” Jack laughed a little, and then, his smile fading, added, “In the end, I finally understood that just because I suffered a huge loss, it was no excuse for pissing away everything generations of my family worked for. Swede gets the credit for that. He got me settled down.”

“But he didn’t get you to slow down,” Sam looked up from his writing, to see Jack grimace. “That accident you had a little over a year ago; you were lucky to walk away from it. You fell asleep?”

“I must have. To tell you the truth, I don’t really remember. I cracked my head pretty good.”

Sam nodded. “Looked to me like you were coming from Des Moines?” Jack didn’t answer that, just smiled vaguely. “You know, it said in the
Record’s
story that you were ticketed with failure to control the vehicle and …”

Jack laughed abruptly. “No, no, that I remember. I guess it’s true, what people say. We remember the good things and let the other stuff go. But what’s my accident got to do with Swede?”

Sam just smiled, that wiseass grin that put Jack on edge.

The interview went on from there, finally focused on the governor. They spent a long time talking about Swede’s successful school consolidation plan and the Erickson family, Jack still reticent, Sam still probing, small points of humor and large stretches of strain taking them a long way. It was after noon when Sam finally rose, flipping the notebook shut, surprised at the fatigue he felt. “Well, I guess that covers it,” he sighed and held out his hand. Jack shook it briefly, looking worn from the give and take as well.

“Great.” Jack didn’t even try to cover his relief at wrapping up, handing Sam his recorder and pocketing his own. “Think you can find your way back to town OK?” He started back toward the kitchen.

“Sure.” Sam glanced up the stairs as they passed. “You know, I just remembered something I meant to ask Tess. If it’s not too much trouble?” He nodded up at the landing.

Jack was hard pressed to keep the annoyance off his face, so anxious was he for Waterman to finally leave. “Tess,” he called up the stairs. “Sam’s taking off, and wants to see you a minute.”

a worn, man’s white dress shirt, several paint brushes sticking up from its pocket. “So long, Sam.” She clearly meant to just give him a wave from there and go back to what she was doing.

Sam smiled, and crooked his finger at her. “Come on down. I meant to tell you that Dodson has a business proposition for you.” He looked back at Jack and explained, “Mike Dodson is Politifix’s chief.”

“Yeah,” Jack frowned, offended that Sam apparently thought Jack wouldn’t know the name of one of the top editors in the country.

Slowly she came down the stairs, a cautious look on her face. Sam said, “I’ve got the big interview lined up with Erickson and his wife in Des Moines on Wednesday morning at the mansion. What’s it called?”

He looked over at Jack who supplied, “Terrace Hill.”

“Right, Terrace Hill. When Steve Johnson mentioned that Stretch here is married to a former
Trib
photographer, Dodson thought it would be great if you’d do the art for us. And I’d appreciate it. It would save me the hassle of hunting up another freelancer.”

Standing a few steps above them, her eyes narrowed to a glare, but when Jack turned toward her, she looked down at her paint-spotted shirt, and murmured, “I don’t think so. I’m really rolling on this project now …”

“Oh come on,” Sam gave her his most ingratiating smile. “It’ll be like old times.” Her eyes came up at that, flashing dangerously, and he added with a small chuckle, “Christmas is right around the corner, and it’s top dollar. Why wouldn’t you do it?”

Looking at Sam’s laughing eyes Tess drew a flat blank for a plausible answer. Jack knew she would normally grab at the chance to do a simple shoot for a site that paid as well as Politifix. She answered grudgingly, “I guess I can fit it in.”

A huge smile spread over Sam’s face. “I knew you wouldn’t turn me down. I assume you’ve been to Terrace Hill before, so you can drive. I’ll be at the downtown Marriott. Why don’t you pick me up there, about 8:30?” Tess only nodded, and both men turned back toward the kitchen. She trailed behind, trying to compose her face and her anger. When Jack pulled the door open, Rover burst in, grabbing his chance to get into the warm house. As he skittered across the polished kitchen floor, he barked stridently at the sight of Sam.

Tess grabbed his collar, and Sam shook his head. “Well, I guess that’s my cue to get a move on. Thanks again, both of you.”

As the door closed after him, Tess could just make out the faint sound of his laughter. She let go of the dog, which scrambled to the door and sniffed, whining unhappily.

“I’ve never seen Rover get so riled up over someone before,” Jack said. “And to tell you the truth, that guy bothers me too.”

“Really?” she looked away, avoiding his eyes. “How come?”

“I’m not sure, but I catch him looking at me sometimes, and it’s like looking across the basketball court at a guy I just beat to the basket. Like he can’t wait to slam an elbow in my ribs next time we go up for the ball together. It’s not pleasant.”

“Well,” she started back toward the stairs. “Pleasant isn’t used to describe Waterman often.” She stopped at the bottom step and looked back at him. “Why’d you change your mind about the interview?”

“Swede asked me to do it. He’s worried about how his relationship with Carl is going to play. I think he wanted me to spin it a little for him. I’d just turned down Donnelly’s job, and I figured I could at least give him that.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Donnelly’s job? You weren’t even tempted?”

Jack shook his head, walking to her, and putting his arm around her shoulders they started up the stairs together. “Why don’t you like him?”

“Who?” She stopped, surprised. “Sam?” At his nod, she spoke around a nervous little laugh, “He’s OK. Just kind of a prima donna. What makes you think I don’t like him?”

Jack shrugged as they continued up the stairs. “You seem different around him. Tense. Why didn’t you want to do the shoot on Wednesday?”

She looked up at him, her eyes wide and troubled, and for the second time that day he waited, unreasonably apprehensive at what was coming next. And then she sighed. “I don’t know. Going down to Des Moines just seems like a hassle, I suppose. But the money will be nice. Did he ask you why you changed your mind about talking to him?”

They turned toward her workroom. “Yeah. I told him you asked me to do it because you used to work with him.” Reaching up, she pressed between her eyes, as if she had a sudden headache.

The Last Drop In was a shack of a bar, drafty and thick with cigarette smoke. It amused Sam that the dump was so far out on the fringe it was possible to get away with simply ignoring Iowa’s ban on smoking in bars. As he sat back from finishing a salty bowl of watery chili, he breathed deeply, actually enjoying the heavy atmosphere. It brought back his childhood, silently eating bad food while his father watched TV, chain-smoking until the cheap tiles of the drop ceiling in the kitchen were stained yellow.

He’d left Lindsborg that morning. He'd probed and probed hard while he was there. Having observed the man's laminated wife, he figured it might be a woman, or women, that Erickson was trying to hide, but there'd been no hint of anything like that. No, there seemed to be only one chink in Swede Erickson's smoothly polished, all-American armor, and that was his alcoholic father. Everyone in Lindsborg had been diffident in talking about Carl, usually turning the conversation to how Swede had looked up to Jim Westphal. Jack Westphal's "strength of character" line sounded like the candidate himself had planted it. And that told Sam that Carl was the most likely place to dig.

So he had gone out of his way to come to this area rather than heading straight back to Des Moines. The drive from Lindsborg had been cold and long, and by late afternoon, Sam was reluctantly certain that his trip to Knoxville to visit the VA hospital where Carl Erickson died was pointless. He’d talked to hospital administrators, and even a couple of doctors who treated him. But between the restrictive privacy laws and an inbred loyalty to the governor, he came up with zip. Until he was almost out the hospital door. Halfway to the exit, an unmarked office door popped open, and a source he’d seen earlier stopped him with a jerk of his head, mutely telling Sam to step inside.

Five minutes later, Sam unlocked the rental car, uneasy with the arrangements they’d made. Clandestine meetings had a shitty way of netting reporters nothing, and he wasn’t really sure what the guy wanted to show him. But it had been the only arrangement the tight-ass would agree to, and Sam was willing to spend extra time in this sinkhole if it meant a new lead.

He checked into a sorry-looking motel off the interstate and spent the evening working on the draft of the profile, weaving in the interviews he’d done that day. When he came to the notebook with the initials T.L. scrawled across the top, he smiled. There were only a few pages used in it, and there wasn’t a single quote that would appear in his story, but it had been an interesting interview nevertheless.

“Thelma with the traditional spelling?” he’d asked over his orange juice and coffee that morning in the Tall Corn’s dining room. The woman with the brassy hair, twisted into an oddly shaped funnel at the back of her head nodded. “And the last name?” Sam couldn’t remember how to pronounce it.

“Liljedahl,” she said it carefully and then spelled it out, emphasizing each letter forcefully. Sam shook his head as he wrote it down. The woman had called him late the night before and offered to meet him for breakfast, telling him she’d heard he was working on a story about Swede Erickson, and that she was positive she could give him “boatloads” of information. As a rule, Sam steered clear of her type. Their interest in seeing their own names in the story usually outweighed their knowledge of relevant facts. But when she said she’d worked at the
Lindsborg Journal
for years, he changed his mind.