Gathering String (44 page)

“Without finishing the report first?” Augie’s voice became even shriller. “That building burned in November, and now it's April. Thurm, you’ve got to impress on them how important it is to get some kind of resolution to this.”

“You think I haven’t tried?” McPaul asked defensively. “I’ve asked time and again to talk to Ralph Miller himself, but I can’t get past the secretary. I’ve told every person I’ve spoken to that this has gone on too long. If you think you can light a fire under them, Augie, you’re welcome to try.”

“Naw,” it was Jack who spoke with a grin, “their job is putting out fires, and it sounds like the whole department is damn good at it.” There was a general laugh, but Augie’s face remained grim.

“It’s not funny, Jack. Just what are we supposed to do until the fire marshal finally gets someone busy on this? Can’t you talk to Swede and get him to make a call? If the Governor takes an interest, it would get them moving.”

Jack shrugged. “Getting to Swede isn’t easy these days. Let’s face it; the man has a lot more on his mind than our hometown flaps.”

The Southern primaries had been a nasty surprise. Fuller was hanging on, siphoning off fringe Republicans. But it was Morton who managed to give Swede more than a run for his money. Morton was a Florida native, serving in the Senate for the last 16 years and entrenched as a loyal, powerful and much-owed player in his party. He’d made a lot of headway as the rock-ribbed elder statesman, capitalizing on his gravitas and painting Swede as an upstart who was too nonpartisan to be a true conservative. The tactic had worked, and Swede had lost some states he’d been predicted to carry.

And now there was the story on Richard Webster’s family’s contributions to Swede’s campaigns. Sam Waterman’s piece had come out two days ago, documenting contributions to Erickson’s campaigns by five members of Webster’s family, some of whom didn’t appear to have the means to support such gifts. The story recounted two controversial rulings Webster had made in Erickson’s favor, one from the district bench not long after Erickson made him Iowa’s youngest district judge, and one two years later after Erickson appointed him as the youngest state Supreme Court justice in Iowa history. Waterman’s story detailed the controversies over both appointments of Webster, who was an undistinguished small-town lawyer four years out of law school when Erickson tapped him for the district bench, rejecting more experienced attorneys favored by a judicial nominating commission. Erickson’s cozy relationship with Webster was embarrassing, and Waterman’s story made Jack wince as he read it.

The nomination was a horserace now.

“Come on, Jack.” It was Chipper who spoke up. “My wife is sick to death of me running the Chamber from our family room. You can get to Swede, if you let them know it’s an emergency. All he’d have to do is make one call to Miller’s office.”

Jack shook his head. “Have you guys been following this race at all? Swede’s got his hands full. There’s no way in hell I’m leaving a bunch of e-mer-gen-cy,” he drawled the word, “messages about a little problem like this. Not while he’s got so much to deal with.”

“Well, if you’re not willing to help with a few calls,” Peterson shot back, “then I’ll assume you’ll put up some office space at the
Journal
for the Chamber to use until this thing is settled.”

Jack threw up his hands, “Good God, Chip, no need for threats.” That drew a few more laughs. “Look, has anyone just asked a couple of these property owners if they’d waive a lease?” No one replied. “Then is it possible they don’t realize the terms are a problem?” Again, no one answered. “Well, Chip, get them on the phone and explain. That’s quicker and a helluva lot better than bothering Swede.”

“You know,” Augie weighed in, “it might help if you used the
Journal
to sway those property owners, Jack. Write a column about the problem and explain how helpful it would be if one of these landlords dropped the lease for us. Appeal to their civic pride. I bet one of them would do it, knowing you’d write a follow-up column praising them. It’s a win-win. We get the space, the owner gets the, the …”

“Shinplaster,” Jack finished for him. “That kind of thing is called a shinplaster in the business, Augie. Sorry, but I’m not going to use the
Journal
for that kind of thing.”

“Then what earthly good is it?” Even after all these years, Augie still resisted the idea that the community news operation was run solely by its publisher.

“I think it’d be more constructive to do a story on all the boondoggling going on in Ralph Miller’s office. That’s what people ought to know.” Jack stood, indicating he was done with the conversation. The others began gathering their things to leave, as Jack caught McPaul just before he ducked out the door.

“Thurm, are you guys still planning on that training session out on Sorenson’s farm tonight?”

“You bet. They were going to raze that big barn out there, but we asked them to let us do a controlled burn for practice. A lot of volunteer departments are going to be there.”

Jack said, “I figure it’d be a good place to find out what problems other departments have had with the fire marshal’s office. You know, I hear rumors, but I need to get some things on the record. A bunch of fire chiefs would be a great place to start.”

“Good idea,” Thurm nodded. “It’d save you a lot of time, talking to them when they're all together. We’re torching the barn at 6:30. Why don’t you give us until eight and then come around. I’ll let ’em know you’d like to talk to them.”

It was the first perfect day of the spring. The quality of the sunshine had changed just enough to feel warmer on the skin, the breeze a bit sweeter from the deep, loamy scent of the thawing ground and the fragile new buds on the trees. As Jack walked back to the
Journal,
he moved slower and slower, struggling to force himself back indoors.

Thelma looked up from behind the front counter as he walked in. “Well, that was an awfully long meeting, even for the Chamber, Jack. You don’t have to stay for every single minute, you know.”

“Uh-huh.” Jack knew if she actually needed something, he’d hear about it in her next breath. When she just looked back down at spreadsheet in her hands, he shook his head and went on to his desk.

“How’s it going, Tom?” He glanced over at the young man who was clicking away furiously at his keyboard. Just before they’d left for New Hampshire, he’d made Tom news editor.

“Everything’s up, unless you’re writing something on the Chamber.”

“Nothing to write,” Jack grunted. “It was a huge waste of time.” Leaning back in his chair, he sighed, and stared for a second at the blinking voice-mail light on his phone. When he forced himself to dial in, the mechanical voice informed him he had 16 new messages. He shut his eyes, and when he opened them again, he hung up without listening to a single one. He turned back to look out the long, wide windows. The sky was china blue, and not a single person who walked by wore a jacket. For a long moment, Jack took it in, and then, rapping his knuckles on the desk, he stood up, and grabbed his keys. “Tom, Laramie, you guys think you can get the paper out tonight?”

“Jack," Thelma’s plaintive voice called from her office as she saw him go past, “you just got back …” He ignored her and ran down the steps.

In his father’s old white pickup, he cranked the window down and the music up. Except for the stereo, the pickup was all original equipment, and it had been old when his father had used it. Swinging by the Dairy Queen, Jack bought a cone and, leaning against the truck door, enjoying it as middle school kids from the building across the road began swarming in. In no time, the high school kids showed up from the town down the road. When Brandon came over, it didn’t take long for the two of them to round up enough guys for a pickup game on the outdoor court. The constant running in the fresh spring air was just what Jack needed.

On the way home, with the dust blowing up behind the pickup like a plume of smoke, Jack knew he’d be sore as hell later, but for now the dull, deep throb of his used muscles felt good. The rough, washboard surface of the gravel road threatened to shake the old truck apart, but Jack didn’t slow down. The roar of the straining engine, the pinging of flying rock, the creaking of the old truck frame and the relentless familiarity of the road, all worked together to drive Jack's thoughts inward, something he'd tried to avoid over the last few months, ever since the day after the New Hampshire primary.

Swede, Carl, the nonexistent passport. Tess, Waterman, and deliberate evasions. Most of the time, he tried to convince himself it was all nothing. And if he kept himself busy enough, he could almost pretend none of it mattered. But deep inside, he knew too much to rest easy.

As a newsman, he should pursue the passport discrepancy. Carl Erickson had to be someplace when he missed his son's inauguration, and it was impossible he was in Sweden as Swede claimed. But as a friend, what could he say to Swede? When Erickson told him the day of the speech that he’d simply forgotten his father’s trip, his face held a look of near panic, like he'd almost revealed something he'd never intended. So Jack had checked it out. Now, how did he tell Swede that he’d found out no passport had ever been issued to his father? How could he admit he’d actually had an investigator to look into it? What would he say?

And as a husband, how did he broach the subject of Waterman with Tess without sounding like a jealous fool? Because he was jealous, so jealous he was surprised his spit hadn't turned green. Waterman was kicking his ass as a journalist. Maybe Tess sensed his feelings, and that was why she so carefully skirted the details of her dealings with the man?

He frowned and turned up the stereo, singing loudly with Johnny Cash's "Cocaine Blues," to block his wandering thoughts. He crested the hilltop and put in the clutch, coasting to the front gate. The Jeep was parked in front of the garage, which meant Tess’s car was inside. Jack still felt a warm sense of contentment to come home to a house that wasn’t empty.

But to his surprise, it was. When he came in the front door, he called for her, but got no response. A quick check of the upstairs confirmed that no one was there. Looking out the study windows, Jack frowned, wondering where she might be. He spotted Rover out by the old barn, sitting on the step and looking up at the door longingly.

As Jack crossed the barnyard, he called to the dog, “Hey boy, come here.” He whistled sharply, and called again, “Hey, you stupid dog.” But Rover just whimpered back at him, thumping his tail and looking back at the door. “Is she in here?” The unlatched door provided more of an answer than the dog’s whining, and when Jack pulled it open, Rover shot in around him and ran to the rickety wooden ladder going up to the long-unused hay loft, yipping as he looked up in frustration.

Her face appeared from the wooden ledge above them. “What are you doing home already? Is everything OK?” It was rare for him to make it home before eight, and certainly he worked much later many nights.

He smiled up at her dirt-smudged face. “Nice day. I wanted to enjoy it a little. And I have to work late tonight. What are you up to? Rover’s beside himself.”

“I know. I had to put him out because he sat down there at the bottom of the ladder fussing. He couldn’t climb up, and I couldn’t carry him. Come on up.”

She hadn’t even finished the words before his head and broad shoulders cleared the ledge. Hopping from the ladder, he glanced around. The immense, open haymow held more memories than anything else. A few dozen random, broken bales, left over from long ago, littered the floor, the loft becoming obsolete with the advent of the combine-produced rolls of hay that now stood in the fields until they were needed.

“Lord, I can’t even remember the last time I was up here.” The musty, heavy smell of decaying straw and thick dust brought back his childhood with such vividness that, for a few minutes, he just stood still, remembering the boy he’d been and the games he and Matt had played there.

Then he spotted the metal ladder that stood propped in the corner, extended up into the rafters. “How in God’s name did you get that up here?”

She beamed, obviously proud of herself. “Isn’t that what pulleys are for?” She pointed to the pulley that had once been used to move the bales.

He nodded in appreciation, but said, “You know, if something had gone wrong, if you’d fallen or something … I’d be more comfortable if you’d wait to do something like this until I was around to help.”

“You might be more comfortable, but I wouldn’t have caught the light when it was just right.” She went back to the metal ladder. “I’ve got my cell phone. I could call for help if I needed to. Besides,” she climbed up to retrieve one of her cameras where it sat on a beam, “I didn’t fall, and I got my shots.”

She nodded and pointed up to the huge, heavy doors that had once opened out to allow farmers to load hay bales into the mow. Jack could just see how, earlier in the afternoon, the sunlight must have streamed around the gaps at the giant latches and sills of the aging building. “While I was working in color, it occurred to me to try the same technique in black and white. But I knew I’d need some powerful contrasts. I’ve been searching for weeks for the right spot, and here it was, right in the barn. I’ve got a whole plan for dust motes.”

“Dust motes?"

She nodded, coming down the ladder. “Just wait. You’ll see what I mean, but it’s going to take a lot of time.” Four or five rungs from the floor, he came up and grabbed her, his right arm under her backside, holding her weight easily. She laughed and grabbed his shoulder, while he reached up and snatched the camera from her other hand. With a gentle toss, it landed on a broken hay bale at his feet and he slid her around so that she faced him, her legs going around his waist.