J. Wachowski - In Plain View

“Why don’t we?”

Was he kidding? I wasn’t adverse to a little sex teaser, but I wasn’t going to hang a cheap resolution on Tom Jost any more than I would hang a half-ass rap on Curzon’s precious cousin.

“Easy sucks,” I said.

Ainsley’s smiling huh of approval was exactly that sort of throaty sound that drives teenage girls to their knees in adoration.

“Fuck you,” I grumbled, reaching for my notebook.

“Nice try.” He might have passed for cool-if he hadn’t turned pink paying me the compliment. “You’re rough, Maddy O’Hara, but you’re not all bad.”

What do you say to that?

Ainsley went back to making faces at the road and slapping his thigh to the music. Thinking was a full body experience for my college boy.

“Does it have to be on a farm or just talking to an Amish person?”

“It’s a visual medium, College. I want the farm.” I flipped back through my shot list notes. “But we’re fairly desperate here. Compromise is possible.”

“I got an idea. The fire chief mentioned that Tom Jost used to have dinner with a teacher of his?”

“Yeah?”

“What if I know that teacher? I think it might be Grace Ott. She grew up Amish.” He glanced at me and shrugged. “I told you, it’s a small town.”

“Why didn’t you say something sooner? Pull off at the next doughnut factory. We’ll make a few calls.”

My notes slid to the floor as Ainsley cut into the turn lane to bang a U. The kid was like a universal locator for bakeries. I tried to gather all my spilled papers in one hand and that reminded me. “Hey, who was that guy on Jost’s front porch anyway?”

“Man! I can’t believe I forgot to tell you about him. He was from some bank in town. When we finished picking up his stuff he goes, ‘That old man’s crazy.’ I said we knew the daughter and she was nice.”

“Smooth.”

“Then he says, ‘Tell Rachel to come see us at the bank. It’s her money now. She needs to come talk to me.’”

“Her money now? What money?”

Ainsley shrugged. “Weird, huh?”

“Holy shit. Do you think Tom left money to Rachel?” Out loud, it didn’t sound like much. In my head, something snapped together. “How much money?”

“Guy didn’t say.”

“We need to find out.”

“Sure. I’ll just add that to my list of calls,” Ainsley tossed off.

“Great.”

I swear he rolled his eyes. Did he think I was kidding?

The sight of Grace Ott’s home reminded me, I’m on the verge of old. I fight the slide of downhill acceleration every day: increase exercise, decrease calories. Increase sleep, decrease expectations. Occasionally, it makes me cranky. Being cooped up in a remote truck with the Boy Wonder doesn’t help. But standing on the doorstep at Grace Ott’s house did, strangely enough.

This was the house you look for when you go over the river and through the woods. The frame was a simple white clapboard saltbox. The driveway was gravel. The garage was detached with old-style sliding barn doors.

Hanging from the doorknob was a weather-faded paper daffodil. I could barely read the printing on one of the leaves. “Happy Spring! Mrs. Ott! We Love you!” On the stoop of a house like this, we were all youngsters.

Ainsley knocked.

With one glance, it was obvious Grace Ott was the kind of woman who had butter in the house and knew how to use it. Her round, sweet face contrasted nicely with the no-nonsense chin. Her hair was white, neatly curled and pinned. She studied me through the mesh of her screen door and turned to Ainsley.

He raised the wattage on his smile to tanning-bed levels.

“Come in then, Ainsley Prescott.” She sounded amused, but not fooled. I got a nod. “You come, too.”

We followed her up the hall that divided her tiny house. In my sister’s neighborhood, the garages were bigger than this house. Grace’s place smelled of time and detergent.

I kept an eye out for photos. I’ve always liked the display of past and present in an oldie’s house, but there was only one picture out-an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven black and white of a young man with a ’50s haircut that showed way too much ear.

“That’s Mr. Ott,” Grace said. “He keeps me company.”

The kitchen would have seemed smaller if it hadn’t been so spare. White cabinets. Yellow Formica. No knickknacks. No pasta-espresso-processor gadgets. No mess at all. There was a drop-leaf table and chairs, a wall-mounted phone with two yards of well-stretched spiral cord, and a calendar with a farm scene.

“I’ve got lemonade in the ice box. Sit right down.” Grace’s heavy-soled shoes clunked across the tile. “Television, hmm? Didn’t I warn you you’d come to no good without another year of history?”

“Yes, Mrs. Ott.” College hunched his shoulders humbly. She turned her back to get the lemonade out of the fridge, and he grinned at me. Thumbs up!

“So what’s all this about Thomas?” she asked.

“We’d like to do a story on him,” I explained.

“Have you heard-” Ainsley started.

“I heard.”

Even in profile, I could see how the thought stiffened her entire body. You live as many years as Grace, you’ve got to take a surrender like Tom’s personally.

“We understand from his captain at the fire station that he visited you now and then.”

“Sure. Amish leaves the community around here, they’ll need to get their GED, sometimes take tests for college and such. I help with all that.” She busied around the cabinets, taking out glasses and setting up a tray.

“How long have you been teaching over at North, Mrs. Ott?” Ainsley asked politely.

“Since before you were born.”

“You still teaching high school?” I asked.

“They put me in administration two years ago. Part-time. I do the GED paperwork for the district. Used to teach history. And German. Ainsley knows about that.”

“ Ja. Himmel,” he answered.

She gave a snort at that. “What do you want to know about Thomas?”

“Whatever you can tell us,” Ainsley answered.

Preparation of the lemonade tray continued without comment. Ainsley looked at me and shrugged.

Interviewing people for a living can be a bit like burglary. What the Boy Wonder didn’t understand yet was how to slip into someone’s house. You aren’t selling vacuums. You don’t necessarily go in the front door.

“Tom seems like a good guy who got stuck.” I struggled to phrase it right. “So stuck that life ended up crushing him from opposite sides. I want to know why.”

“Oh, do you?” She turned those old eyes on me and looked hard enough to make me nervous. After a minute, like a soft dissolve, I realized she wasn’t looking at me anymore, she was looking into her own head. “It wasn’t really opposite sides, you know, more like from the inside out.”

The lemonade came to the table on a tray with extra sugar and long spoons for stirring. There was a fruit bread and jam in a lumpy glass jar. Good omens.

“Did Ainsley tell you I grew up Amish?” Grace asked. She sipped her drink with a frown, once, twice, then finally approved. “Youngest of ten. Things were different for me than for my eldest sister, of course. My mother was barely eighteen when my sister was born and nearly forty when I came along. I’ll save you the trouble of calculating. My eldest brother was sent to jail for a short while for refusing to fight in the Second World War. My husband and I both were jailed for participating in a protest against the Vietnamese War. Times change even for the Amish.”

“I thought the point was not to change.”

“The point is to stay humble, and focus on something besides yourself,” she said. Not angry, more like a teacher pinpointing the danger of a little bit of knowledge.