S. Tooley - When the dead speak

“You’re going to have a windowsill full of bird shit,” Jake pointed out as he sat down and draped his long legs over Sam’s desk, crossed just above the tennis shoes. He pulled out a notepad and started writing.

“Where are you going to start?” Sam asked.

“Try to locate a relative,” Jake replied. “The father died twenty-five years ago. The mother died ten years ago. There’s a sister, Matilda, who lives in D.C. Frank, I need you to make out a list of the men in his division, his commanding officer. Hopefully, someone is still alive. See if anyone remembers him.”

“That’s a long time to hide out,” Sam said, eyeing Jake’s tennis shoes as she sat down. “Do you mind?” He slid them off the desk.

“If I were a guy with the threat of prosecution if the military caught up with me,” Frank started, “I would avoid stepping foot back home. I’d probably…”

“Stay in Korea,” Jake said.

“Right.” Sam picked up her pen and started doodling, drawing lightning-bolt shapes as she thought back to the pin in Preston’s safe. “The pin has stayed out of the papers, right?”

Frank glanced over his shoulder and saw Murphy walking down the aisle. It didn’t matter that the door was closed. Murphy walked in without knocking.

“So.” Murphy rubbed his hands together. “I hear we I.D.’d the fossil.” He said it as if he personally had something to do with it.

Sam eyed him suspiciously, then turned her notepad over. “Yes,” she replied.

“I read Benny’s preliminary report. Asphyxiation. Horrible way to go.” This time he let his eyes rest on Sam, “What’s with the pin that was omitted from Benny’s report?”

“We’re still looking into it,” Sam replied. “It could be a key piece to identifying who he might have been in contact with.”

“Looks like you have your hands full with this one. Trying to retrace this guy’s steps after all this time should keep you busy for a while.”

Sam forced a smile. “Which is why I need as much uninterrupted time as possible.” Murphy took the hint and left. Sam flipped her notepad over again and stared at the drawings. “I’m personally going to handle finding out how Preston is connected to Harvey Wilson.”

“So, you’re really going to go through with this,” Alex said. He and Abby sat in the shadows on the patio enjoying a glass of iced tea.

Alex’s dark eyes were framed in sharp, angular features. His strong body had been toned by judo, a sport he had learned years ago during his two years in the Army. Enlisting had saved him a trip to reform school for siphoning gasoline.

“It is tradition. As Sam’s mother it is only right that I choose her husband.”

Alex shook his head in disbelief. “She should marry Lakota. Besides, I have watched them, listened to them when I’ve worked around the yard. They hate each other. You can see it in their eyes,” he argued.

“I know I saw him in my vision. Besides, when they are together, all I see are sparks. They are attracted to each other.”

“Sparks,” Alex muttered. “They are sparks generated by a lot of friction.”

Abby raised her hand to silence him. “We will let the spirits decide. You must prepare the sweat lodge. We need large rocks, they hold more heat. And sage. It is important we have a lot of sage.”

“I have plenty of sage.”

They heard the slamming of car doors from the side drive by the garage followed by loud voices. They watched as Jake trailed Sam up the steps and across the patio.

“Act with your head this time, dammit,” Jake yelled. “I don’t know how you ever made sergeant. It sure couldn’t have been from common sense.”

Sam slid the screen open and rushed inside with Jake close behind. “All I want to do is take another look at the pin. Is that so wrong?”

“He has a surveillance camera,” Jake added as he slammed the screen shut behind him.

“I can get around it.”

Once inside, the arguing continued, although the voices seemed more muffled. Alex shifted his gaze from the house to Abby and said in a dry, humorless voice, “I think we need more sage.”

By the next morning, the identification of the body in concrete had made the front page of every major newspaper, and the one living relative had been notified.

“Are you sure I can’t get you any coffee?” Carl Underer asked.

The elderly woman lifted her eyeglasses to wipe her eyes. She looked well preserved for her seventy years.

She smiled through her tears. “He was such a bright boy, Harvey was. And always smiling.” Her face lit up as she spoke of her brother. “That’s why we nicknamed him Happy, Hap for short.” Her bottom lip trembled, the tears fell freely.

Carl walked around his desk and wrapped a consoling arm around Matilda Banks’ shoulder. She patted his hand as though he were the one who needed consoling. Mattie had worked for the FBI for thirty years in their Housekeeping Department. She had outlived her husband. Her one and only child, a daughter, had died of leukemia at the age of two. Other than memories, all she had left of Hap was in the shoe box sitting in her lap.

Carl propped himself against the edge of his desk next to Mattie. The morning sun sliced through the blinds, spraying lines of striped sunlight across Mattie’s face.

“Do you need help with the funeral arrangements? I’m not sure when they will release the body.”

She shook her head no. “I would never ask you for anything, Mr. Underer. I know you are a busy man. But…” She started to cry again. The shoe box fell off her lap spilling its contents on the dark blue carpeting.

Carl picked up the letters, all with the same handwriting, all with an APO return address. Mattie motioned with her hand for him to keep them.

“I want you to read them,” Mattie said. “I never believed the Army when they said he deserted. The Army was his life.” Her eyes pleaded, her hand gripped his wrist. Holding back sobs, she cried, “Would you help me? Find out what happened to my brother.”

The files from storage sat on the FBI security director’s desk. Carl pulled off his horn-rimmed glasses, ran his hand through his thinning gray hair, and rubbed his eyes.

Chasen Heights was a long way from D.C. But if his memory served him correctly — he found the file he was looking for and picked up the phone. When his assistant answered, Carl said, “Book me on a late afternoon flight to Chicago. Reserve a car at the airport and a hotel suite in Chasen Heights.”

Carl hung up the phone and opened the file folder. The name on the folder read Jake Mitchell.

“You read all these letters?” Jake asked Carl as he fanned through the envelopes on the conference table.

“On the flight over.” Carl poured two cups of coffee and handed one to Jake.

The suite on the top floor of the Suisse Hotel had a wall of glass overlooking Lake Michigan. Decorated in contemporary European with fine lines and tiny flowers in the furniture, drapes, and wallpaper, the suite screamed expensive from every fiber.

“Hope I didn’t pull you from that nice warm bed of yours.” Carl grabbed reports from his briefcase and slid them across the table.

“Midnight?” Jake laughed. “I can’t remember the last time I got to bed by midnight.” He leaned back and studied his former boss. Professional and detail-oriented were two words that had described Carl when Jake first met him twelve years ago and the words still fit. Every category of backup material had its own folder labeled in bold lettering. Jake noticed the folders were even alphabetized in Carl’s briefcase.

“Do you have any connections in the Pentagon to get us Hap’s military records?” Jake asked.