mother.
“One moment, please.”
Jack had returned to the little office in the log cabin headquarters of Camp Orania. Since shortly after dawn he had patrolled the camp with the camcorder videotaping everything, from the main road in, the long, winding timber road, the odd, supposedly concealed pillboxes along it either side, the trailers, carport-bunkhouses, Porta Potties, the central log cabin, the flagpole, the flag, the hills surrounding the camp, the target ranges, the ancient, locked Quonset hut he assumed was for weapons and ammunition storage.
And he had videotaped the cook hanging by his neck from the branch of a tree.
Upon his return to the log cabin headquarters Jack had interrupted the breakfasts of Commandants Kriegel and Wolfe and Lieutenant Tracy by telling them of the hanging cook. Tracy had made their breakfasts.
Kriegel slapped the breakfast table and laughed. “So! It wasn’t my speech that made everybody sick! For a moment there, I thought perhaps I had lost my touch! The boys knew it was the chili! So they hung the cook!”
“Damn,” Wolfe said. “It’s damned hard to keep a decent cook. That one wasn’t bad. He could make great pots of food out of anything we gave him!”
“Better they hang the cook than the speaker!” Kriegel laughed. “That’s what I say! The boys know Man does not live by bread alone!”
“Sorry to interrupt your breakfasts,” Jack said. “There’s another dead guy out there, too. In the woods behind the women’s trailers.”
“Have some eggs, Jack,” Kriegel said. “You’re looking tired. Didn’t you sleep well? I slept wonderfully! Nothing like a good purge for the system! You young are supposed to recuperate from a difficult time faster than we older people. Let me pour you some coffee.”
The four men finished their breakfasts. Wolfe and his son discussed where on the place they would bury the cook and whoever the other corpse was. Tracy was assigned to draft someone else as cook and put him to work preparing breakfast for the men as quickly as possible. Wolfe would organize the burial.
Kriegel said, “We’ll postpone the church service, our Bible reading and my sermon, one hour, until after you dispose of the corpus delicatessen.” He laughed. “Will eleven o’clock be all right?”
“Eleven o’clock will be fine.” Wolfe put down his coffee mug. “I want the men awake when they hear that that damned Jew Moses married a nigger!”
Wolfe and his son left the cabin.
Kriegel said to Jack, “Moses married a nigger? Where do you suppose that man gets crazy ideas like that?”
Jack said: “Damned if I know.”
In compliance with camp security, Jack had understood, the only telephone at the camp was the one in headquarters’ little office. He knew his conversation was not being overheard. Kriegel had followed Wolfe out of the cabin “to see how blue the hanging corpse” was.
The phone rang ten times before Crystal answered it. Jack was used to that. His mother had difficulty moving, even across a health spa’s bedroom.
“Hey, Maw!”
“Jack, are you all right?”
“Fine and dandy. Except that I am in bad need of a few hours’ sleep and a shower. How are you doin’?”
“As usual. I have lost a few pounds.” To Crystal a few pounds was like a bucket of sand to the Sahara. “But are you all right? Tell me about yourself. Did you connect with your father?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you think of him?”
“Senile.”
“Senile?” Crystal asked. “Fletch senile?”
“Yeah,” Jack answered. “He can’t remember any of the stories you tell about him….”
20
“M
“Oh, yes?”
“Yes, sir. Dead and bloatin’ up real bad.”
Sunday morning, head still hurting, throat sore, neck stiff, Fletch had checked the fax machine in his study and, finding nothing yet on it from Andy Cyst, took his cup of coffee out onto the upper balcony. He loved to watch the rising sun dissipate the fog that was in the farm valley most mornings.
It had been nearly midnight when he and Carrie had left Camp Orania in Tolliver, Alabama, for home.
Before Fletch left the encampment, Jack had placed his hands on the windowsill of the station wagon as if he still had something, one more thing to say to Fletch. Fletch waited, but Jack said nothing.
Fletch realized that Jack was still in shock from having killed someone, their having found the cook hanging by his neck from a tree branch.
So was Carrie, of course, and she was heading down the long dark timber road alone in the farm truck.
So Fletch said to Jack through the car window, “We’ve given each other interesting times so far, haven’t we?”
Jack said, “I’ve had more boring weekends.”
“The weekend isn’t over yet.”
Jack looked to his side. “Why are you leaving? It may be over anytime now.”
Coolly, Fletch said: “I have other things to do.”
Jack did not inquire.
Fletch said, “I’m a great one for confirming things.”
“Isn’t that how you almost just got killed?”
“One source for any story is never enough,” Fletch said. “By the way, thanks for riding shotgun for us back in the woods. You had both of us fooled.”
“I guess I still can’t say to you, ‘Trust me.’”
“Sure. You can say it,” Fletch said. “I’ll store the request.” Then Fletch said: “Repeat after me.”
“Okay.”
“All bullies are cowards.”
“All bullies are cowards.”
“Paranoids’ worst enemies are themselves.”
“Paranoids’ worst enemies are themselves.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
Following Carrie on the long drive home to the farm, Fletch telephoned airlines.
Then he telephoned Andy Cyst at his home.
“Andy! I’ll bet you’ve heard enough from me today.”
“No, sir.” Andy yawned. It was midnight and Andy most likely had been in bed asleep. “It’s okay.”
“Thing is, I’d like to set up that story regarding people with life-threatening food addictions. Specifically, I’d like to do a short feature at that place called Blythe Spirit in Forward, Wisconsin.”
“You have a sore throat, Mister Fletcher?”
“A bit of a one.”
“Sorry. When do you want to do the story?”
“Tomorrow.”
“You mean, today? Sunday?”
“Is it Sunday yet?”
“As far as I’m concerned it is. After I go to bed and wake up, it’s the next day, however early. I was brought up that way.”
“Yes. Today. Sunday.”
“What’s the hurry, Mister Fletcher? It’s a pretty soft feature.”
