1635:The Dreeson Incident

Chapter 54

"Do something revolutionary," Ron recommended. "The Committees of Correspondence approve of doing revolutionary things. We're in the middle of a nationwide purge or something. So kiss me good night here in the hall, instead of going out on the sidewalk. The temperature is dropping and you'll get your ears cold again."

Missy thought about it. Right inside her own house? That would.. . change things, somehow.

As a kind of temporary compromise, she put her arms around his waist and her face against his. "Could you talk to your manager Kautz in the morning?" she asked. "I know that your dad trained him and that he knows what he's doing, but he doesn't seem to be into sharing. It's as if he's convinced that 'we hold these truths to be self-evident.' Can you persuade him that if he rolls over dead one of these days, they won't be so self-evident to anyone else now on the payroll? Your dad isn't really in a position to come all the way back here, just to train someone else."

"I'll give it a try."

He took his hand and moved her chin. "You'll get your nose cold, too, if you don't kiss me right here. And your feet wet and very cold. The rain is changing to sleet."

The impish electrons that had been residing in her kneecaps and hip sockets all winter perked up at the thought of being able to take advantage of a kiss that would take place in a warm, dry, and generally comfortable environment for a change. With the result that the requested kiss not only occurred, but incorporated what amounted to a crotch grind.

"Wow," Ron said. "Very enticing. A new addition to the repertoire. Where has this been before?"

"If you think I would do that outdoors where people could see us. .."

"I'm crazier than you think I am." Ron moved his hands down where they could encourage the electrons to do it again. "Wish I didn't have to go get some work done."

There was another distinct pause before the front door opened and closed.

Missy came back into the living room and looked at her parents, who were valiantly attempting to give the impression that they hadn't heard every word. Not to mention counted the duration of every interval between the words. And that they had been born middle-aged.

Chad finally gave it up as futile.

"What's with the self-evident truths?" he asked.

"We're working on a formal procedures manual now. They've been winging it without one. Most of the staff is pretty cooperative."

"But some of it isn't." Chad grinned. "Business as usual. But why his business and not mine?"

"I don't know, exactly." Missy stood there. "Actually, a lot of the stuff that I learned Saturday mornings, over the years, racketing around in your office, has been pretty helpful. I guess I should say 'Thanks.' "

"You'll have to deal with it some day, you know," Chad said. "My business. Businesses. Chip certainly isn't going to."

She put her hand on the corner of the piano.

"Nothing urgent," he said. "Nothing to interfere with getting your education for the next few years. But eventually. That's something to tuck away in your mind. Fit into your schedule as time goes on."

"Damn it, Tino! No." Ed Piazza was close to exploding.

"The county board had to do something about replacing Henry. We couldn't just let it hang. Not with everything else that's going on. I got the most votes in the county board election last year, so they picked me as interim mayor. I'll finish out his term."

Chad Jenkins stood up. "You will not fill out his term. The county charter provides for a special election. That's what we'll have. Whether you and Frisch like it or not."

Tino stomped out. Chad tuned to Ed. "I'd feel happier about it if we had any idea who ought to succeed Henry. I've talked to Willie Ray and to several others. All we come up with is blank minds. The Crown Loyalists will nominate either Tino Nobili or Hartmuth Frisch, I suppose. I just can't predict what our caucus will do."

"The meeting will now come to order." Willie Ray Hudson, as local party chairman, banged the gavel.

He looked around. The auditorium at the middle school was packed. There must be fifty copies of Robert's Rules of Order in the room. At least three-quarters of them in German.

"The floor is now open for nominations."

About a hundred hands went up.

One of them belonging to Orval McIntire. The rest of them belonging to a caucus of women all sitting together over on the left side.

Well, the majority rules. Especially under these circumstances.

He motioned. "Inez."

She didn't stand up. She couldn't. She was still in a wheel chair.

"We're together," she said. "All of us. Ronnie's going to speak."

Veronica got up.

"Not everybody's going off to Bamberg," she said. "Somebody's got to take care of this town. We've got a candidate. She was the executive assistant to the Emergency Committee, right after the Ring of Fire. She was executive assistant to Mike Stearns when he was president of the NUS. When he went off to Magdeburg and Ed Piazza took over, she stayed here in town and she's been working for Ed ever since. She knows how things work."

"Not to mention," Veleda Riddle muttered, loudly enough to be heard by almost everyone, "where all the bodies are buried."

Ronnie was still reading her prepared speech. "She is civic-minded. She has been an active member of the League of Women Voters ever since it was founded. Her husband's business is here, so she's going to have to quit her state job. So, we…" She stopped and waved at the group. "All of us. We nominate Liz Carstairs to run for mayor of West Virginia County on the Fourth of July Party ticket."

"Well, I'll be damned," Ed said. "If that didn't come at us right out of left field."

Chad Jenkins nodded in agreement.

Annabelle and Debbie looked at each other, wondering once more at the innocence of the male of the species about so many things.

"Not," Annabelle said, "if you really sit down and think about it."

"Can Liz win?" Joe Stull asked. "Against Frisch?"

"Yes," every woman in the room said at once.

Veda Mae Haggerty was sitting in the Willard Hotel dining room again-for lunch, this time-when she said what she said about Veronica Dreeson. Again.

It was pretty much what she had read in the pamphlet. About how all Krauts were anti-Jewish and Ronnie hadn't been there with Henry when he was shot, so she had probably been a supporter of that mob of Krauts who were attacking the synagogue.

She said it very loudly. A lot of other people were listening.

The popular disapproval was general. Except, of course, among those people who thought there might be something in it.

She gave her lunch partner a copy of the pamphlet and assured her that Jacques-Pierre Dumais could explain what it all meant.

Pam Hardesty had not realized, in advance, how many incredibly boring, unpleasant people an apprentice spook had to be nice to. She went home, wrote up her longest report so far, even longer than the one about the garage, and sent it to Cory Joe.

Don Francisco was pleased. It was so nice to know more or less what one was looking for. It enabled one to concentrate on the needles and ignore most of the haystack.

"That's the best description that I can give," Minnie said.

"It is admirable," Don Francisco said. "You should not criticize yourself."

It was admirable. The girl had recalled many nuances that an experienced observer might have missed. But how to record them, make them permanent, distribute them?

"I sure wish," Preston Richards said, "that Grantville had an Identikit setup. But we didn't."

Explanations followed.

"Lenore can do it," Wes Jenkins said.

"Do what?" Richards asked.

"Make sketches from Minnie's description. You should have seen the sketches she gave Clara for Christmas, that she did from Mom's old family photos."

"Lenore?" Don Francisco asked.

"My older daughter."

"Can you bring her here?"

"She is here. Well, not right here, but downstairs and in the other wing. She's a records transcriber for Chuck Riddle's setup. We can take Minnie down there."

"Someone take her, then. Not you. I have more questions about the Fulda end of things." Don Francisco looked around the room for a surplus participant in the meeting. "You do it, Stone."

Lenore understood almost right away. She listened to Minnie go through her descriptions, again and again. She produced a set of sketches. Not just a "mug shot" but also full length views of the sniper from various angles, showing what he was wearing and how he held his body. It was amazing what her idea of placing the railings and balustrades of the bridge behind him contributed. Height, set of shoulders, angle of the head.

It took quite a while. As Minnie and Lenore worked, Ron wandered around the office.

As they were getting ready to leave, he pointed at the prints up over Lenore's desk. "What are those?" he asked.

"A classical Greek temple. It's called the Erechtheum."

"I mean, the women who are standing there where you'd expect a column to be."

"They're called caryatids."

"Cool."

Ron looked at them again, more closely. "I've never seen anything of the kind, before. I'm impressed."

He was impressed. They were absolutely magnificent.

The reminded him of Missy. Hairdos. Faces. Shapes. Posture.

Maybe that was why she got to him so. What kind of a guy would make do with "cute" or merely "pretty" when, with a little luck, he could have stupendous?

Lenore was her cousin, but didn't look a thing like her.

"You know," he said. "I don't think I've ever seen Missy in a dress. She says she doesn't look good in dresses. But she would look wonderful in a dress like that."

Don Francisco was delighted with the sketches of the assassin. The etcher whom he employed to make the plates did an excellent job. The pictures appeared in every newspaper in the USE with facilities to duplicate them. Often as cruder woodcuts, to be sure, but still showing the essence of the man's appearance.

He hoped that Locquifier and Ducos would be profoundly annoyed.

He was quite impressed with the competence of the girl Minnie. Plus, he had that letter from Denise Beasley. The Grantvillers told him that the two were close friends.