Chapter Two

Chapter One has been revised slightly and here it is:

Chapter One

CHAPTER TWO

UNCLE FRED'S CRUSADE

Leda quit rummaging in her purse and stared at the officer, searching his round face for a prankish smile. He had to be joking. But then she remembered this officer — Pete Something. Lived on her street, actually. Nervous type, didn’t leave the police station much. Even writing a parking ticket made him break out in hives.

"Dead?" she repeated. "What happened?"

"I dunno." Officer Pete rubbed his arms. “Man, I feel itchy.”

Leda let her purse fall to the floor of the car, then snatched it up again when she realized the floor was strewn with fast-food bags, old newspapers and sticky candy bar wrappers. She peeled a Butterfingers wrapper off one of her red sneaker as she considered Pete’s news. Uncle Fred? Dead?

“You don’t know what happened?” she asked.

Pete shook his head, then threw the car into drive and inched slowly across the high school parking lot. Students popped up from behind cars like prairie dogs, then ducked down again to avoid detection. Leda started mentally listing names (Was that King William of Prussia behind that Civic?) then asked herself if she really cared. The answer was no.

The squad car turned west onto the two-lane Highway 19, following a rumbling line of fruit trucks. “How – how did he die?” Leda asked.

“Dunno.”

"Didn't you see him?"

Pete turned a shocked face at her, nearly stopping the car and setting off a litany of honking.

"Oh no," he said. "I tried, but ... I felt strange." He pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead. "I feel strange now, just talking about it."

"Maybe I should drive," Leda said.

"No, no, I'll be fine," Pete said bravely. The car crawled a few feet, then stopped for a squirrel, then slowly gained speed. "I'd just rather not talk about it."

Leda sighed and looked out of the dirty car window as the car turned right onto Market and slowed further, if that were possible. The equestrian statue of Winslow's namesake. General Josiah Winslow crept into view. General Winslow had moved to the village in 1863, soon after the Battle of Gettysburg, and the residents were so excited to have a real Civil War general in their midst that they renamed the village after him. Gen. Winslow was very old then, and an obvious head case who spent his time in Gettysburg reliving his glory days in the Mexican-American War. The excited villagers didn’t care, though; the town renamed itself Winslow and the venerable general showed his gratitude by dropping dead four months later.

Dead. This month was the anniversary of General Winslow’s death and now Fred Stark was dead too. It was somehow fitting — Fred Stark's devotion to the general had been deep and lasting, bordering on the religious, if not the dangerously obsessive. When Leda first arrived in Winslow the year before, Fred initially hailed her as a fellow historian, his conduit to passing on the town's heritage to impressionable young students. But then Leda limited her local history unit to three days and Fred's participation to one 20-minute lecture. The scorned historian never forgave her. Three days was an insult to West Michigan's legacy, he told Leda in front of her 5th-hour class.

"Three days!" he screamed, while students cowered in their desks. "How can you honor the dreams of our fathers in only three days?"

"They're lucky to have that," Leda told him. "I had to cut two days off the Crusades to make it fit, and that includes the sacking of Constantinople."

But such a concession cut no ice with Fred, who brushed away centuries of Christians in the Holy Lands and stormed out to share his outrage with Principal Seymour. They spent a happy hour complaining about Leda in his office, but Michigan history remained a three-day unit.

“Officer!” called a querulous voice, squeaky with urgency, and a rapping noise. Leda jumped and looked around. Old Mrs. Loomis was trotting beside the squad car, hitting it with her cane. Her adult daughter, Mallory, followed behind, carrying her mother’s purse.

“Speed up,” Leda whispered to Officer Pete. Surely an eight-cylinder police car could outrun a little old lady.

“Huh?’ Pete looked started. “But there’s a stop sign.”

“Yeah, two blocks away, just … oh, forget it.” Pete stopped the car and rolled down the window. Mrs. Loomis looked down at them with satisfaction. She wasn’t even out of breath.

“Good afternoon, Officer, I want to discuss the roadblock by Goosey Mansion!” Mrs. Loomis announced.

Pete cringed. So did Leda. Old Mrs. Loomis had always been a force to reckon with, despite increasing age and eye cataract problems resulting in near blindness. Now a recent surgery had restored her sight and nobody in Winslow was safe. Leda had to admire Mrs. Loomis’ spirit, though. Blue Cross had originally refused to pay for cataract surgery on the grounds that it was a pre-existing condition. For one solid week in January, Mrs. Loomis sat in front of the village health clinic, half-frozen, holding a large sign that said “I may be blind, but I can see through Blue Cross’ lies.” TV Channel 8 out of Kalamazoo came to Winslow to film her. Soon afterwards, Mrs. Loomis got her surgery in Kalamazoo, presumably after Blue Cross saw the PR risk in denying surgery to blind old ladies, although neither Mrs. Loomis or Mallory would talk. Probably a corporate gag order, Leda thought. She wished the village could do something like that.

Leda supposed she should feel good about such social activism that restores rightful benefits to the downtrodden elderly, but the truth was that Mrs. Loomis’ restored sight was a mixed blessing for the town. The staff of Winslow Medical Clinic was no doubt relieved to be spared her daily presence, but that just meant the rest of Winslow had to deal with her.

Mrs. Loomis looked past Pete at Leda and her surgically enhanced eyes widened under penciled brows. “Well, of course I won’t delay you, Officer. You’ll need to get this one to the station at once.”

Leda rolled her eyes. “I’m not under arrest, Mrs. Loomis.”

Mrs. Loomis looked disappointed. “If you say so, dear. Tell me, have you heard from darling Jeffrey?”

“No,” Leda said through clenched teeth. Mrs. Loomis never failed to ask after her ex-fiance.

“I just thought, surely we would hear from the dear boy by now, but perhaps something is keeping him away …” She trailed off, glaring at Leda. There was no doubt in her mind what was keeping Jeffrey Stark away from Winslow, where he was so loved and needed.

“Uh, I’m on police business, Mrs. Loomis,” Pete said. “We’re on our way to the courthouse museum—”

“The courthouse?” the old lady asked avidly. “Police business at the courthouse?”

“Mother,” said Mallory, taking Mrs. Loomis’ arm and trying to draw her away. “Let Pete do his job —“

“But what about the roadblock!” Mrs. Loomis tugged free and banged on the car door again with her cane. “We simply cannot have the street past Goosey Mansion blocked off – the detour takes traffic right down Magnolia Avenue! I haven’t had a moment of peace!”

“Well, it’s for the wedding, Mrs. Loomis — North Main businesses and commercial vehicles only —”

“High school students are driving down my street! Speeding at all hours! Completely out of control!” She banged on the squad car door again to illustrate the loss of control. “Obviously,” she said venomously, looking past Pete to Leda, “these teenagers don’t have anything constructive or educational to do.”

“It’s only until Friday, ma’am,” Pete said. “Mr. Goosey has paid a generous sum to clear North Main and …”

The squad car’s radio suddenly exploded. “Pete!” shouted a crackling voice. “Pete, where the hell are you?”

Pete lunged for the hand-held receiver. “Officer Tartan here. Yes, I have Miss Morris. On my way.”

“Then get moving, damn it!” the radio shouted.

“Yes sir!’ Pete stepped on the gas.

“In my day a girl could get married without choking quiet residential streets with traffic!” Mrs. Loomis screamed as she sprinted after them.

“You’d better drive faster,” Leda said. “She’s catching up.”

The police radio call, plus the sight of Mrs. Loomis in Pete’s rearview mirror, was enough to push the speedometer to 25 mph, a marked improvement. Mrs. Loomis and General Winslow’s statue receded from view, both now blocked by a minivan full of little ballerinas.

Pete turned right on Prairie Avenue and Leda could see the roadblock on the left, blocking access to Winslow’s historic, ivy-covered Goosey Mansion. The Gooseys were Winslow’s first family: still rich from a lumber fortune, hopelessly snobby and avid to slap their name on every building in town. But they knew a nutcase when they saw one, and Fred Stark certainly qualified. The Gooseys rarely allowed access to their papers and antiques and Fred turn up at any large event at the mansion, desperate to catch a glimpse of a genuine horsehair sofa or Goosey family portrait.

Poor Uncle Fred, Leda thought. He wasn’t really her uncle, of course, he was Jeffrey Stark’s uncle. But when Leda first met Fred Stark the year before she was Jeff’s fiancé and eager to please, so she called him Uncle Fred. As a “sixth-generation Winslowite,” he was unimpressed by the smart-mouthed San Francisco girl his nephew was marrying. Leda was certainly no Goosey of the Winslow Gooseys; she was a Morris from the Mission District and her mother’s family lived in Celaya, Guanajuato, near Mexico City.

Fred’s dreams were partially realized. While Jeff didn’t marry a Goosey, he did run off with one, after Leda had followed him from San Francisco to this godforsaken little town. Squatting in a nasty, bug-ridden apartment in the Tenderloin, the bucolic life of a western Michigan farming community was enticing to Leda. They would settle in a white house with a picket fence, rock on a porch swing, raise half-a-dozen children. Leda could trade the sullen city classrooms of Polk High School for small-town classes of eager, well-scrubbed students. Jeff would write the Great American Novel and they would build him a little writing studio overlooking the Kootchikoo River.

Those dreams lasted six months. They had to live with Jeff’s daffy sister Candace in their old family home (just until the Novel sold for a hefty advance, of course). Leda discovered that all teenage classrooms — urban, rural, suburban, Martian — were sullen and Jeff discovered that talking about the Great American Novel was a lot easier than writing one.

Six months was all it took for Jeff to rediscover all the reasons he’d left Winslow in the first place. His regular fits of existential despair, which never failed to impress the South-of-Market café crowd, only inspired total incomprehension in Winslow and a few fresh-baked fruit tarts. It wasn’t that they weren’t welcome — on the contrary, Jeff was embraced as a returning hometown hero, fresh with tales of the dissipated big city, a walking symbol of the superiority of small-town life. Women left pies on the doorstep and stopped Leda in the street to tell stories of Jeff’s antics as a child. Old men smiled when she said hello and kept her up to date on the current time, temperature and latest barometer reading.

Yes, Winslow was a welcoming place ... until Jeff drove off in their only car with Angela Goosey back to San Francisco, where he would write content for a new dot-com that created online graves for pets.

Which left Leda in Winslow, teaching history and living in her ex-fiance’s sister’s house. She was no longer Winslow’s golden girl; she was now Jeff’s Reject, the shameless city woman who chased their beloved hometown boy away. No more cherry pies on the porch, no more framed cross-stitch samplers for her future married life. Everywhere she went in the village, she felt eyes measuring her, reassuring themselves that it was Leda, not Winslow that was just Not Good Enough.

“We’re here,” said Pete, breaking into such happy thoughts. She could see the tall, white Greek Revival pillars of the 1839 courthouse through the squad car’s dirty window. The lilac bushes along the side of the building looked bedraggled in the slanted October sun.

Somebody rapped sharply on the driver's window. Officer Pete squeaked in fear, knocking against the gearshift by mistake. The squad car rolled forward and the cop squeaked again and threw the car back into park. Then he rolled down the window.

The shadowed face Officer Sam Luther, backlit by the late-afternoon sun, filled the window. "Thank you for coming, Miss Morris," Luther said. "Tony, what time did your shift start?"

"Uh, 8 this morning."

"OK, Chief says you're off the clock. Seven-hour days until further notice."

"Oh maaaan ..." the cop whined.

“I know, Pete.” Sam slapped him on the shoulder and walked around the car to open Leda's door. She scrambled out, clutching her purse and a folder of ungraded Franco-Prussian War tests. She wished she'd dressed better that morning; in anticipation of war games on the football field, she was wearing jeans, tennis shoes and a red Winslow High School hoodie. It probably served her right, Leda thought, after years of playing “Midwest or Lesbian?” at airports. Now she went around in clothes that she wouldn’t have cleaned the garage in, back in San Francisco. At least she wasn't wearing a kitten sweatshirt. You had to draw the line somewhere.

Sam Luther, on the other hand, was meticulously dressed, his brown uniform pressed and perfectly creased. He had the face and build of a typical small town football jock, all shoulders and blond hair and a broad, tanned face. But Sam was a spooky guy, a tremendously talented policeman, the type of cop who probably could get in the mind of a serial killer and feel the emotions that prompted him to bludgeon fitness freaks to death with frozen Crystal Geyser water bottles.

"Why am I here?" she asked. She knew Fred Stark was an old bachelor, but surely there was somebody better to identify the body than his nephew’s despised ex-fiance.

"We need you to look at something," answered Sam, his pale blue eyes burning, imagining, no doubt, the mass grave that might be under the red brick pathway to the courthouse.

“Officer Luther …” Leda hesitated. She didn’t know this man very well. Jeff had always referred to him as Sam Loser, a small-town rent-a-cop who wouldn’t leave even after his marriage ended.

She swallowed. “Is Uncle Fred really —”

Luther nodded. “He left a note.”

Leda’s folder suddenly opened, scattering history tests on the cold dirt ground. She knelt without thinking, stuffing the papers back into the folder, instinctively trying to keep them in alphabetical order: Archer, Baker, Banham, Dressel …

Luther was beside her, gathering up the rest.

“Um, give me Kilbourne first,” she said. “Now Longbourne …”

Suicide. Leda had never considered suicide. The Fred Starks of the world didn’t commit suicide. They didn’t flail around looking for Meaning in Life, they had their meaning, they were a link to the past, holders of a sacred trust, protectors of faded photographs and genuine pinewood hat holders everywhere.

“Where’s Kristie Van Plew’s test?” she managed to ask. “Oh good.” She stood and stared up at Luther again. “Why?”

“We’re hoping you can answer that,” he said, heading up the brick path.

Leda trotted after him to the historic courthouse. The building's door, pillars and steps were painted white and shone bright against the red brick walls. Even the grout between the bricks looked freshly scrubbed, and knowing Fred Stark, probably was.

They were now on the courthouse steps. Luther opened the tall door and ushered her inside.