Daughter of Ashes

TWENTY-SEVEN

‘An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.’

Simon Cameron, 1799-1889

I love late summer afternoons, that time of day when the sun casts long shadows, bringing Mother Nature into sharp focus. In a large saucepan, I was bringing turbinado sugar, light corn syrup, dark rum and butter to a boil over medium heat in order to make my mother’s fabulous pecan pie. Kim had challenged me to a duel. She planned to enter her mother’s killer peach pie in the bake-off the following day at the Tilghman County Fair. How could I allow her mother to out-bake my mother?

The telephone rang. Still stirring constantly to prevent burning, I reached for the phone. ‘Hello.’

‘Hannah, it’s Cap. I was passing by the courthouse on my way home when I saw two trucks pull into the parking lot. They had BioClean written all over the sides, so I hung around for a bit to see what they’re up to. Sam let one of them in through the back door. The guy was in there for a couple of minutes, and when he came out, the rest of them started climbing into white moon suits. I asked Sam what they were up to. Apparently they’ve been ordered to clean out the storeroom.’

I dragged the saucepan off the burner. ‘Who gave them permission to do that?’

‘Kimberly, I guess, but I can’t get her on the phone to confirm.’

‘Have you called Fran?’

‘I tried her home phone, but she didn’t pick up.’ He paused, and I heard a sharp intake of breath. ‘Damn. They’re carrying out boxes now.’

‘Where are they taking them?’ I asked, feeling panicky.

‘Hold on. I’ll call you right back.’

It seemed like hours, but it was probably only a few minutes before Cap rang again. ‘Just chatted with the supervisor. He says that because of the mold, the records are going to be incinerated at the county animal shelter.’

I let that information sink in. Knowing how hard we had worked on inventorying the county’s old records, I couldn’t believe that Kimberly had authorized their destruction, especially when our work was only half done. ‘I’ll get there as soon as I can. In the meantime, stick around and see what you can do to delay them until I can talk to Fran.’

When I reached Fran a few minutes later, it was on her cell phone. I could hear merry-go-round music in the background so I presumed, rightly, that she was at opening night of the county fair. ‘Fran,’ I said without preamble. ‘There’s a hazmat team at the courthouse, taking our records away.’

‘That’s not funny, Hannah.’

‘I’m not joking. Cap just called. They’re parked behind the courthouse so they’d be less obvious, but they’re from BioClean. It’s the same outfit that cleaned up the meth lab in Dorchester County last month. Cap says they’ve been ordered to take everything to the county animal shelter and burn it.’

‘Hazmat?’ Fran said. ‘Shit. First they take away our keys, now they let just anyone waltz in and take away county records before we’ve even had time to find out what’s in them?’ She paused to draw breath. ‘Who hired BioClean anyway?’

‘Kimberly, I suppose.’

‘I don’t believe that for a minute, do you?’ She paused. ‘I’ll call Kim. In the meantime, you call Grace.’

‘Grace? Why Grace?’

‘She volunteers at the shelter. Perhaps she can hold them off at that end.’

I reached Grace where one usually reached Grace. On her cell phone, sitting by Rusty’s bed. When I explained the situation, she said, ‘But we’re a no-kill shelter. The incinerator hasn’t been used for over six months.’

‘Apparently they’re going to fire it up. Is there any way it can be disabled?’

Grace paused to think. ‘There’s a big propane tank out back. Maybe if I shut off the fuel…?’ Her voice trailed off. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

When I arrived at the courthouse, I nearly ran my car into Kim’s as she was pulling into the parking lot from the opposite direction. She parked diagonally across the exit, jumped out of her car leaving her driver’s side door open and sprinted across the parking lot shouting, ‘Stop! What are you doing?’

It answered the question of whether or not she had authorized BioClean’s clandestine weekend visit.

Kim cornered one of the moon men as he emerged from the courthouse carrying a box I recognized as containing traffic tickets from 1972-1974. I didn’t care much about forty-year-old citations for failure to stop at a red light, but the next worker who emerged to face Kimberly’s wrath was carrying a box I’d sorted and labeled myself. Planning and Zoning, Hearings, 1961-1981 stood out in bold black letters on the outside. I planted myself firmly in the workman’s path.

He tried to step around me, but each time I countered his move in a cartoonish parking lot pas de deux.

‘Who’s in charge here?’ Kimberly asked, her voice low and menacing.

The worker jerked his helmeted head toward another white-clad alien carrying a second box of records labeled Time Cards, 1950-1960. ‘Owen.’

‘Don’t move,’ Kimberly ordered, and marched over to confront Owen. ‘I’m the court clerk. Who authorized you to do this?’

Owen peered at her from behind his plastic visor. ‘We have the hazmat contract for the county.’

‘How does that answer my question? Who authorized this removal?’

‘Who did you say you were?’

‘I’m the county clerk, Kimberly Marquis. I work here. And I certainly didn’t order anyone to take our records away.’

‘Paperwork is in the truck,’ Owen said. He dropped the box of employment records he was carrying to the tarmac and waddled off in his hazmat suit and booties to get it. A few seconds later he returned holding a clipboard awkwardly between gloved paws and thrust it into Kim’s hands.

Over Kim’s shoulder I peered at the document on the clipboard. In the blank for contact and billing information was a name I didn’t recognize. ‘Who’s that?’ I asked Kim, tapping the name that was typed on the form.

‘Ginny’s the admin assistant for the county council.’

‘Jack Ames’s office?’

‘Bingo.’

‘And is this his signature at the bottom?’

‘It sure looks like it.’

How low would Jack Ames stoop to protect himself and his family?

‘Is there something in the basement that Jack Ames wants to keep buried?’ I whispered in an aside to Kim. ‘Or do you think he’s ordering this destruction on behalf of his father, Clifton Ames?’

Kim shrugged helplessly.

Owen held out his hand for the clipboard. ‘We have a job to do, ma’am. I’d appreciate it if you’d let us get on with it.’

‘We have personal items in the storage area,’ I told him, thinking quickly. ‘We’ll need to retrieve them.’

‘Make it snappy,’ he scowled and pantomimed checking his watch which, if he actually wore one, was hidden under layers of white, non-breathable fabric.

As Kim and I hurried into the courthouse, I glanced back over my shoulder. Owen was on his cell phone, presumably reporting this disruption to his supervisors.

In the basement, we found the door to the storeroom standing wide open, two BioClean employees stacking up boxes inside.

‘Out,’ Kim said. ‘Owen needs to see you.’

After the men departed, Kim and I glanced around. What could we save in the few minutes remaining to us?

‘If Jack Ames is behind this, it all has to go back to those land deals his grandfather made in the late forties and early fifties. He can’t make the actual land records disappear, of course, but without the indexes they’re much harder to find,’ she said as she lugged two heavy volumes out of the storeroom and reshelved them behind the paper towels and toilet paper in the main part of the basement. The marriage index with its beautiful red leather binding found a temporary home in a box of pot shards excavated from a dig behind St Timothy’s Church. Kim located the packet of letters written home by the World War I soldier and tucked them into the waistband of her jeans.

‘Just a bit of petty larceny while we wait for this mess to be sorted out,’ she said and reached for another box.

Feeling powerless, Kim and I watched from the front seat of my car as the BioClean workers carried ledger after ledger and box after box out of the courthouse basement and loaded them into their service van. I’d counted fourteen boxes, mostly old time cards and employment records, when Fran pulled up in her lipstick red Neon. She joined us, her cheeks glistening with tears. ‘I can’t reach anybody. All the offices are closed. Everyone must be at the fair.’

‘They picked this weekend on purpose,’ I fumed. ‘Date and time are specified right on the work order Owen showed me.’

I’d never felt sorry for Fran before, but as the three of us watched our carefully planned project evaporate out from under us, I, too, felt like weeping. There was a lot of junk in the storeroom, true, but who knew what treasures were still buried at the bottom of the boxes we hadn’t gotten to when Kim had ordered us to stand down and hand in our keys? And if Jack Ames had his way, we’d never find out. I thought back to the first time I’d met the politician when he’d come to welcome us – or so he claimed – to Tilghman County. He’d given me his business card. Told me to call any time. Did I still have it?

I rooted around in my handbag and finally located the card tucked between my Blue Moon Coffee Shop frequent shopper card – well-punched – and my Anne Arundel County voter registration card. Incredibly, it listed his cell. I dialed the number and got a chirpy recording that infuriated me: Hello. This is Jack Ames, your Tilghman County Council president. Remember me when you go to the polls in November.

Like hell I will, I snarled while waiting for his voicemail to kick in. He would be judging prize hogs about now, I figured, surrounded by beaming, fresh-faced 4Hers. After the beep, I told his voicemail, ‘Call off the hazmat team, Mr Ames. The jig is up. We both know what they’re looking for and they’re not going to find it at the courthouse.’