Chapter Eleven D: Encounter with Alex

After lunch on Sunday Aaron drove Pol to the airport so she could return to Washington. It was a sweet parting. They had touched each other deeply during the night and morning spent together. Both knew they were approaching a decision point in their relationship. They were, in short, falling in love with each other. Physically, they had not progressed past falling asleep in each others arms on the sofa, an even that Aaron’s tender ribs were reminding him of all the way back home. But, he mused, that much discomfort was definitely worth while. They had talked and bantered back and forth all morning, avoiding the moment when they would need to leave for the airport. When they went to the barn to get Aaron’s car, Pol walked past the Subaru and motioned Aaron to follow her.

“I thought perhaps you’d like to see this since you know so much of Aunt Hattie’s story,” Pol said. She pulled the tarp off one of the farm vehicles and to Aaron’s surprise he saw the 1923 Roadster. “Aunt Hattie could never part with it,” Pol said. “She made her brother promise to keep it safe and, well, it’s been here in the barn ever since.” It brought a smile to Aaron as he surveyed they cracked leather and rusty frame of the car. It was a collector’s dream. It wouldn’t take all that much to restore it. They re-covered the old car and headed out to the airport in Aaron’s 78-year-newer Subaru.

Now as he drove back toward Fort Wayne in the waning light of the March afternoon, he was overwhelmed with a desire to see the old church. He had become so steeped in the family history that he felt he had to finish this last investigation, and Pol had told him where the key was. It would only take a few minutes. He swung off the interstate at Markle and headed back toward Pol’s house.

As he headed north out of Uniondale his cellphone rang. Jack was on the line and was excited.

“I just heard from Susan,” Jack said without preamble. “We’ve got big problems and you need to get in touch with Washington pronto.”

“Okay, what do we have,” Aaron said. “It appears that Hoosier Steel may not be at fault, and that the EPA is trying to keep a lid on this in order to investigate a potential terrorist threat. Homeland Security is prowling all over the area. It could be the basis of an eco-terrorist attack.”

“I’ll let the Congresswoman know as soon as she gets in. I just got her on a plane about an hour ago.” Aaron said. “In general, I want to call everybody in. No getting involved with a Homeland Security investigation. Call everybody off. This is not something we want to get in the middle of. Where’s Susan now?”

“She said she was on the move south of Fort Wayne someplace, but wouldn’t go into detail. She says she has her cell phone switched to silent but she’ll call us later this evening,” Jack said.

“Reel her in as fast as you can, Jack,” Aaron said. “I’m headed generally toward Fort Wayne now. I’ll come directly to you.”

“Drive carefully,” Jack said and hung up.

Aaron turned up the road toward the old church thinking that he’d look around the cemetery a few minutes and then poke his head into the building. But as he crested the hill he saw that another car was already parked in front of the church. He pulled in across the road just as a second car pulled in front of the church. He saw Susan jump out of the car. He quickly slipped out of his car and gave a long low whistle. Susan ducked behind her cardoor and Aaron was surprised to see a gun in her hand. She motioned him closer and he joined her behind her car.

“God, Susan is that necessary?” Aaron asked breathlessly as he ducked down beside her.

“I don’t know, but I’m scared to death,” she whispered. “I’m sure they are meeting in this church. That’s his car.”

“They who and him who?” Aaron asked.

“The terrorists,” Susan said quietly. “I need to get close enough to hear what they’re saying.”

“There’s only one entrance based on my experience with this church,” Aaron said. “We should check to see if there are open windows.”

“In March?” Susan asked incredulously. “If that’s the only entrance, then that’s where we need to be. Do you have a recorder on you?” In a way it was a silly question. Aaron almost always had a digital Dictaphone in a pocket somewhere. But he’d been on a date last night, not working. He flipped open his phone.

“I can record a few minutes on this,” he said. “Nothing too long.”

“That’s okay,” Susan answered. “We shouldn’t spend any more time than we have to. Let’s go.” She took the point and opened the door to the church. After checking the foyer she motioned Aaron in and closed the door behind them. They could hear voices in the sanctuary. The door was closed and Aaron slid up next to it. He carefully edged it open ever so slightly and slid his hand inside with his phone on record. He thumbed his remote earpiece on and listened to the conversation.

“Beating the pulp out of him is not likely to be the right decision,” said the first voice.

“Too late for that. The order has been given already,” said a second voice.

“But it’s not going to go away,” said the first.

“Bury it,” said the second.

“Look, it was easy to kill the Great Lakes Bill. I just needed to call in a few favors. But dumping mercury in the Lake had to come to the surface sometime. And the steel mill has already accounted for every drop they’ve stored. I wouldn’t be surprised if Homeland Security is involved now that they ran that story.”

“Whatever possessed him to pass on that kind of information?” the second voice asked. “He knew it wouldn’t do his employers any good, or anyone else. We’ve reached a critical point in this plan. He’s got to be taken out of circulation and everyone pulled back. They can’t possible locate that canister before it’s too late.”

“Wasn’t there any other way to do this?”

“No.”

Aaron’s earpiece beeped indicating that his time ran out on this recording. He pulled his hand in restart the recording but Susan signaled him out the door. Outside she moved quickly to her car.

“We’ve got enough,” she said. “We put that recording together with the photos I’ve got and send them off to Homeland Security. They do the rest.”

“What photos?” Aaron asked.

“I’ve snapped pix of one of them prowling around the lakeshore.”

“Send them to me and forget you ever heard about this. I’ll take it from here,” Aaron said.

“You can’t sit on this, Aaron,” Susan said.

“Funny, that’s just what Lonnie said when he left and blew this story all over everyplace. Don’t worry. I’m sending the whole package to the Congresswoman and asking her to alert the authorities. I don’t want any trail leading back to you or anyone else who researched this.”

“Fine. I’ll see you at poker night sometime.” Susan closed her car door and pulled out. Aaron got in his car and drove away in the opposite direction. He was just turning north out of Ossian when his phone beeped with a message. He flipped it open and saw the message gleam from Susan. He used his thumb to download the photo while he drove and watched the road. When it beeped again indicating the down load was finished Aaron glanced back down at the phone.

What he saw surprised him so much that he nearly drove off the road. He quickly checked his rear-view mirror and did a spinning u-turn in the middle of Route 1 and headed south. In 15 minutes he was pulling into the drive of the Warren Memorial Home and running up the stairs to Aunt Hattie’s room.

He raised his hand to knock, but the door swung open. The room was empty. He backed out of the room and ran into Amanda Frederiks rushing down the hall.

“Oh, hello, Mr. Case,” she said. She looked like she had been running all day. Sunday evening shift must be a tough one.

“Amanda, can you tell me where Aunt Hattie is?” Aaron blurted out in one breath.

“Oh, the poor dear had a seizure and fell during afternoon tea,” Amanda said. “She’s in the hospital unit. We haven’t been able to reach her niece to let her know.”

“Her niece is flying at the moment. I’ll call her as soon as her plane lands,” Aaron said. “Which way to the hospital unit?” Amanda pointed the way and Aaron was off.

Hattie was in a private hospital bed and seemed to be asleep, but as he slipped in the door she turned her head and smiled weakly at him.

“Dearie, is it Friday already? I seem to have lost track of time,” she said. “I’m simply not presentable.”

“No, it’s only Sunday, Aunt Hattie,” Aaron answered softly. “I heard you fell at tea and I rushed right over,” he said lying a little for her benefit. How badly hurt was she?

“Everything seemed to stop working at once,” Hattie said. “My legs just gave out on me and then I couldn’t even push myself up with my hands. And I’m so tired. I don’t know what to do.”

“I’ll let you rest,” Aaron said softly. He didn’t have the heart to ask her questions at a time like this, no matter how desperately he needed to know the answers.

“No, no,” Hattie exclaimed softly. “Please don’t go. I don’t want to be alone. Ask me questions and I’ll tell you stories of my wonderful youth in the country.” Aaron pulled a chair up next to her bed and wished that he had a recorder with him. “What would you like to know, Dearie?” Hattie asked.

“Well,” said Aaron, “I suppose you know a lot of family history. Where does Uncle Alex fit in?” Hattie started in the bed and the heart monitor raced until she had settled back and turned her head toward him.

“Alexander Jasper is an old fraud,” Hattie said as vehemently as she could muster. “He’s neither uncle nor nephew to anyone in my family.” She coughed and Aaron was not sure his questioning was doing her any good. She sucked in a lungful of air and then began again. “I’ll tell you what happened. It was soon after the war and I’d told Claire and Allison my story. The little snip started spreading around school that I was mad, and that I believed spacemen had come around and used the church as a spaceship. One of her teachers was an opportunistic young man named Alexander Jasper. I didn’t know him, but he’d heard of me. It turns out he had seen me once performing in a regional theater. You must understand that I was quite a pretty girl, even in my forties.

“Well one day he showed up at my door in Fort Wayne where I was living at the time. He was very familiar with me. Called me his dear Mattie. He actually insinuated that he was the reincarnation of Harper MacKenzie, born on the night that Harper died. He said he’d come back to me and that he was there for me.” She began coughing again and Aaron was afraid that he’d gone too far. She had a tear leaking from her eye when she started again.

“Mark my words, Aaron,” Hattie said through her tear. “When you have known one of them, you know them. It is as if your heart strings are attached and you can’t help but love him. You know that he is good from the very bottom of your being because nothing so heavenly could ever be bad.” She was crying freely now. “My Harper could never have done an evil thing. It simply wasn’t in his nature.

“You know what I mean, Aaron,” she went on. “I can tell that you have felt it too. It is how I know that Polly is one of them. It doesn’t have anything to do with genetics. It is where they choose to be.” She squeezed her eyes shut as if to block out something very painful.

“That man failed with me, but he began on Pol as soon as she was born. He knew that Allison would have none of it, but Pol was another story. He so wanted to be one of them that he probably actually believes that he is one. And believe me, they have no compunction against using a willing vessel. I’ve no doubt that they use him, too. But he has no discernment. He can’t tell good from evil. He can’t even tell anymore that he is not one of them. But there is nothing you can do to become one. Believe me, I would have if I could.” It was becoming difficult for Hattie to keep talking through her tears.

“My poor little Polly. I worry so much for her. My dear, dear little grandchild. He’ll lead her someplace that she shouldn’t go if he can.” Aaron had tears in his own eyes as well.

“Why are they here, Hattie?” he asked quietly. “How could they ask him or her to do evil things?”

“They take care of the planet. We are just a little spec on it. The planet sometimes needs to shake off some of itself in order to grow. If it’s not doing the job well enough itself, they prune and trim to help it along. We’re just limbs and leaves on the great world tree. Sometimes we need to be pruned.”

The description sent chills down Aaron’s spine as he remembered his vision of the kind of catastrophe that would be caused if there were a major earthquake in Lake Michigan near the heavily populated area of Chicago. It could cast the global economy into chaos and bring the world into a new dark ages. Was that what “they,” whoever they were, were trying to do? Weren’t there other ways?

Aaron was brought out of his internal questing for answers by the sudden limpness of Hattie’s hand in his own. Alarmed he looked at her again. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing shallowly. Assuming she was asleep, he gently laid her hand down on her bed and rose to leave. Her eyes fluttered open and she looked at him.

“She doesn’t even know who she is,” Hattie whispered. “She doesn’t know who I am.” Aaron made a snap decision.

“Yes she does, Aunt Hattie,” he said comfortingly. “She told me herself that she is your great-granddaughter. She is really very proud of the fact.”

“Is she?” whispered Aunt Hattie. “I’m so very proud of her.” With that she drifted off fully into sleep and Aaron left the room. On his way home he called Jack.

“Can you get me a flight out to DC tonight?” Aaron asked when Jack answered his phone. “I’m in the car and I’ve got too much going on to make the flight arrangement. I need to pick up my suit and head straight for the airport.”

“Have you talked to Representative Stamos yet?” Jack asked after confirming that he could get the flight reservation.

“She should be arriving in DC about now,” Aaron said. “I can’t give her this evidence over the phone. I’ve got to see her in person.”

“Why not?” Jack answered.

“I know who planted the mercury, and she’s not going to like it a bit,” Aaron said. “I need to be there.”

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