The Deadline (16 page)

Morgan dumped two sugars into his sweating glass of tea and tossed the empty pink packets on the table.  Fenwick intrigued him.

“Why a judge?  What about the bench lured you?”

“It seemed to be the nexus of law’s purpose and its practice.  All my life, I saw incapable men holding court, toying with the livelihoods, and sometimes the lives of frightened people in trouble.  One should be meticulous in such matters.  Not all of them were fair men, nor were they even thoughtful men.  They didn’t understand the gravity of their responsibility, and they wielded their power with no creativity.  I believe I would have been a very fine judge.”

Fenwick picked up Morgan’s empty sugar packets and folded them neatly into tidy squares, which he deposited in the ashtray.

“What about Judge Hand?  I recall he was the judge here for a long time, wasn’t he?”

“Darby Hand was the law in Perry County for almost forty years.  He was a brilliant thinker, but the power rotted him inside.  I feared him.  I still fear him, even though he’s dead.”

Morgan felt a little sorry for this obsessive, frightened little man who sat across from him.  Fenwick’s only dream had been beyond his power to control, so he compensated by mastering the minutiae of his life.  Unable to command order in the court, he gave painstaking order only to what fell within his reach. 

The rain had stopped, although the sky was still obscured by a sopping blanket of clouds.  Morgan was watching tiny concentric circles ripple across a puddle in the gutter when a battered pickup, caked with equal parts of mud and rust, splashed through it.  The truck came to a stop just in front of The Griddle’s front door.

The driver was an elderly man with a long, white beard.  He wore a soiled gray-felt cowboy hat, its rain-warped brim rolled tightly.  His denim shirt was buttoned at the top, but the collar hung loose around his neck.  When he stepped out of the truck into a wallow of run-off, Morgan saw he was wearing knee-high irrigation boots.

The old man walked around to the passenger side, away from Morgan’s view, and opened the door for a younger woman who was in the truck with him.  She followed him, a few awkward steps behind, her head cocked to one side.  She wasn’t right.

“Who’s the man who just came in?” he asked Fenwick.

The retired lawyer turned toward the front door, then just as quickly turned back.

“You don’t know?” he asked incredulously.  “That’s Malachi Pierce.”

Pierce stood by the cash register with a sheaf of papers in his hand, rain and mud puddling around his boots.  He was looking for the cashier, who’d disappeared into the kitchen moments before.  The young woman stood behind him, lolling her tongue and staring blankly at a cowboy sitting at the counter.

“Who’s the woman with him?”

“That’s his daughter, Hosanna.  She’s retarded, poor child.  He takes her everywhere.  Must be close to thirty years old.  I’ve heard it said he considers her a punishment, sent by God.”

“Punishment for what?”

“I wouldn’t know.  Perhaps you should inquire with him.  However, I might suggest you accept it as an article of faith rather than try to communicate with him.  He’s a very angry man.”

Pierce grew impatient.  His dark, deep-set eyes crawled over the small dining room, looking for the cashier.  He rapped the bell on the counter six or seven times as his daughter huddled behind him.  She was watching Morgan.

Her sloping eyes were empty.  She looked as if she had Down Syndrome, her round face framed by closely cropped ash-blonde hair, a kitchen-sink cut.  She put her fingers in her mouth and watched him.

Pierce whacked the bell a few more times, then went around behind the cash register. 

Hosanna Pierce’s eyes flickered around the room, then she lapsed back into her own claustrophobic world.  What started as a low weeping sound rose like a siren’s wail until she was in full throat, screaming.

Pierce paid little mind until he saw Fenwick.  Angry and impatient, he grabbed his daughter around her waist and hauled her out of the restaurant.  He wrestled her toward the truck and opened the door so she could curl up on the floorboard, weeping against the seat.  His flyers littered the restaurant floor.

Pierce looked back through the window, glowering at Fenwick through the glass for a chillingly long moment, then they drove away.

The outburst had silenced the diners.  Suzie squatted down to pick up the scattered papers Pierce had dropped on the muddy floor.

“Jesus, what was that all about?” a stunned Morgan asked Fenwick.  “She saw you and just freaked out.”

“She’s a damaged child.  I can’t begin to know what dark delusions she harbors.  Perhaps it was just an unfortunate spell.  I’m an old country lawyer, not a doctor, Mr. Morgan.  I hope you find whatever you are looking for.  For the life of me, I cannot determine why it’s so important to re-open this wound, but I suppose that is the habit of reporters.”

Morgan smiled.

“Not just reporters.  Don’t lawyers seek justice, too?” he asked Fenwick, who shrugged him off.

“You said it yourself:  Desperate criminals get very imaginative.  Mr. Gilmartin is desperate.”

Simeon Fenwick held out his soft hand to Morgan.  His grip was still cool and damp.

“It was nice to meet you.  I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more assistance.  Perhaps we can have lunch again sometime.”

Fenwick snatched up the ticket and left it on the cashier’s counter with a crisp ten dollar bill.  He stooped to pick up one of Pierce’s flyers, as if he were annoyed by the mess, then waved feebly at Morgan as he disappeared out the front door in a few fastidious steps.

Morgan sat alone in the big booth for a while, nursing his iced tea and trying to sort through what he’d seen.  Although they were an unlikely pair, the radical militant Pierce and the prim Fenwick were connected, but how?  Morgan’s best guess:  Fenwick had done legal work for the old man at some time.  He fished a small notebook out of his breast pocket and made a note to himself to check for any court records on Pierce.  His gut told him it was likely he’d find Fenwick’s name somewhere in them.

Before he put his notebook away, he made another note: 
Call Jerry Overton, ATF
.  An agent in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms’ Chicago office, Overton was the ATF’s top expert on radical religious extremists, white supremacists and dozens of underground militia groups.  It was the perfect job for the former Methodist seminary student who quit school to serve two tours in the Marines in Vietnam.  After he got back to the World, he eventually earned a master’s degree in forensic psychology from the University of Illinois.

Now in his fifties and still fiercely competitive, he stayed fit by inviting a dwindling pool of hapless victims to his twice-a-week racquetball games; Morgan had lost more than his share to Overton’s quick reflexes and withering kill shots.  But he’d won a trusted friend whose word was always good, a friend who’d helped link the serial killer P.D. Comeaux to a little-known group of violent Christian fundamentalists known as the Fourth Sign.  Overton would know if Malachi Pierce was on the bureau’s watch list.

Suzie brought one of Pierce’s flyers to Morgan.  It was a mud-flecked copy of the letter he’d written to
The Bullet
, reproduced under a quote from the Book of Luke: 
“For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed;  neither hid that shall not be known.”

“That man is crazy bad news,” she said.  “You watch yourself.  Don’t trust him.”

Morgan spent the rest of his dark afternoon doing busywork, distracted by his impending meeting with the banker, Hamilton Tasker.  He could do nothing more than beg for an extension.  But he planned to put off the meeting as long as possible, and he glanced at the newsroom clock nervously every few minutes.

Morgan thumbed through his Rolodex and found Jerry Overton’s number.  It was after four o’clock on a Friday afternoon in Chicago, but Overton, who worked as hard as he played, answered his phone.  Even with friends, he wasn’t much for small talk, so the pleasantries were brief.

“So, what’ll it be today, my investigative reporter friend:  Alcohol, tobacco or firearms?” Overton jibed.

“Are those my only choices?” Morgan played along.

“We’re specialists here, buddy.  Beer, butts and bullets.  You want amateurs, call the FBI.”

“In that case, I’ll take firearms for a thousand.”

“Excellent choice.  What’s up?”

“This might be right up your alley, Jerry.  I’m wondering what you can tell me about a guy out here who may be into some serious weaponry.  He’s one of those hardcore Christian Patriot types, heavy on the Armageddon and white supremacy.  Sort of a malignant cross between Koresh, the Klan and the Oklahoma bomber.  His name is Pierce, Malachi Pierce.  He runs an isolated compound out here called Wormwood Camp.”

“Nice touch.”

“What?”

“From the Bible.  Wormwood is from Revelations.  If this guy’s into Revelations, you’re in for a lot of happy camping.  The Revelation nuts are starting to see ‘the signs’ and they’re breaking out the ammo.”

“He is.  But I need to know if he’s worth watching.  Can you help me on that, strictly off the record?  No story, just background.”

“You know I can’t.”

Sharing ATF intelligence wasn’t just against policy, it was against the law.  A felony.  Overton’s twenty-six-year career would be over in the blink of a cursor if he tapped into the Treasury Enforcement Communication System for a civilian.  TECS was a super-computer database shared by Customs, the Secret Service, the Internal Revenue Service and ATF, and if Pierce had ever run afoul of any of them, he’d be in The Box.

But as a matter of personal policy, Morgan never asked his sources in law enforcement to break the law and, in turn, they never asked him to break the ethical code of journalism.  He wrote better with a clear conscience.

“I know, Jerry,” Morgan said.  “I’ve just got a feeling about this guy and I’m a little worried.  He’s made some veiled threats.  Claire’s home alone, we’ve got a baby on the way ...”

“Hey, congratulations.  That’s wonderful news.  You were a great dad before, and you’ll be a great dad again.”

Overton knew more about the pain inside Morgan than anyone.  His own teen-age son had died in a prom-night car accident and, after Bridger died, he’d take Morgan to Marley’s Tavern on the most difficult afternoons and just listen as the grief poured from his heart.  Somewhere inside Jerry Overton was still a clergyman with a gift for comfort.

“Thanks, Jerry.  Maybe that’s why I’m edgy.  I don’t normally take these guys seriously, but I got a funny feeling this time.  I just thought maybe you’d be able to steer me in the right direction, that’s all.”

“Have you tried a Freedom of Information request?” Overton asked.  No lawman ever casually suggested an FOI request to a newspaperman.  Information was power, and most federal agents believed the bureaucrats who decided what data was public and what was private sometimes bent over too far for nosey reporters.  But Overton clearly wanted to help his old friend — as long as it was legal.

“Yeah, right.  I want to know in this lifetime, Jerry.  An FOI request would take months, and you know it.”

“Sorry, friend.  You know the drill.  Bad guys have all the rights.  Wish I could help, but after all those leaks on the Unabomber and that Olympic security guard, ATF’s determined to show we’re a lot less talkative than our chatty brethren in the FBI.  Management’s got everybody spooked about talking to the press.  You know, they’re probably listening in on this call right now ... right boys?”

Morgan laughed.

“I understand, honest.  But if you run across anything that might be public, let me know.  I’d owe you one.”

“One what?”

“Let’s see.  I’ll owe you an Old Style at Wrigley.  Good enough?”

Beer seemed to be Overton’s one unwholesome habit.  He preferred heady, imported ales, but he always said there was nothing like ballpark beer.  Morgan knew it was a singular weakness in his otherwise flawless friend whose sense of honor now commanded that he keep his code.  Morgan understood honor, and respected it.

“Yeah, Old Style.  That’s real good.  The best thing I can say about the Cubbies is they got good beer.  But, Jeff ... seriously, I don’t think I can help.  You know what’s at stake.  I’m really sorry.”

Morgan said he did.  It wasn’t a lie.

They exchanged warm goodbyes and promises to drop in if they were ever in the neighborhood.  But to Morgan, the old neighborhood never seemed so far away and he never felt so alone. 

After Morgan hung up, Cal Nussbaum appeared from nowhere, his hang-dog face looming over the computer screen.

“Jesus, Cal, how long have you been standing there?”

“Not long.  You got a minute?”

Morgan knew what was coming.  The reticent printer had been unhappy for weeks and he wasn’t one to chat up the editor about anything less than a crisis.  He was too old a dog to learn new tricks, too near retirement to gut out the increasing difficulties.  He was going to quit, and Morgan saw it coming.

“Sure, have a seat,” he said.  “What can I do for you, Cal?”

“There’s something I want to say that ain’t easy for me,” Cal said in his slow manner, choosing to stand.  “I been here since the Second World War.  I was thirteen years old and my first week on the job, back in ‘Forty-three, Georgie Patton invaded Sicily.  I was workin’ here even before Old Bell, to give you an idea.  So when Old Bell left, I started thinkin’ about how long I’d been here at the paper.”

“A long time, Cal,” Morgan said.

Already, he was wondering where he’d find a new pressman.  Morgan didn’t know how to run a web press himself, so he hoped Cal would stay on until his replacement was hired.

“Yeah, a long time.  Fifty-three years, just makin’ a newspaper.  A fella just sort of keeps his head down and does his work, and next thing he knows, he’s an old man and he ain’t done none of the stuff he promised hisself to do.”

Morgan felt sorry for Cal, but he didn’t want to lose him.  Not while this house of cards was vulnerable to the slightest whisper.

“Cal, you’ve been a great help to me and to Old Bell.  He told me there was only one person I could count on.  You.”

“That old fart lied.  We was each other’s biggest pain in the ass.  Some days you’d a swore we’d kill each other before we’d work side by side for fifty years.  But I done my work the best I could, and so did he.  I respected him for that.”

Morgan imagined these two iron-willed men in epic deadline battles, firing off bursts of profanity in hand-to-hand combat over headline breaks and last-minute editing and all the balky machinery of small-town, weekly journalism.

“Anyhow,” Cal continued, “a fella comes to a point in his life where he has to make some hard choices about his work.  I guess I’m there.  Damn arthritis gets worse every winter.  I been savin’ up for a long time, maybe for a little place down south where it’s warm.  I’ve always thought that would be how I’d like to spend the rest of my life.  Warm.”

Morgan was deflated, but he tried to be buoyant.  Cal Nussbaum had worked too long and too hard to go out on bad terms.