The Last American Martyr (7 page)

The views from the Blue Ridge were absolutely breathtaking on that fall morning. Beyond every twist and turn, the panoramic visions of the Great Smoky Mountains were nothing short of astounding. Guaranteed, anyone who visits this place will leave with full color, mental snapshots indelibly forged in their mind. Folds of smooth rolling mountains stretch out in seemingly endless rows, in every direction, for as far as one can see. Mystical blue “smoke” rising from the countless peaks only intensified the magnificence surrounding us. Elaina and I just had to pull over to a small parking area and get out of the camper.

“Look at this, Tom,” she said in awe, “look at the colors. It’s like a red, orange, and gold quilt has been spread over every inch of these mountains. This is unbelievable.”

She took some photographs with the new camera, and then we just stood there for a few moments. Neither of us said a word. It was as if being in the midst of such beauty, we were partaking in a religious experience. Eventually, though, Elaina broke the silence. She’d noticed a nature trail leading down into the woods.

“Hey,” she said, “let’s take a walk. C’mon, Tom.”

“I don’t know. You sure you want to?”

“Oh, don’t be an old poop, let’s go!” she said, brimming with excitement.

With the new binoculars hanging from our necks, I said, “Shit yes, what the hell.”

I locked the Winnebago, and we carefully walked down a steep incline leading into the trees.

Happy as a teenager on prom night, she slung her arm around my waist as we entered the woods, and I did the same to her. Looking up into my eyes she squeezed my side and said, “We’re going to have one hell of a time on this trip, Tom. Can you imagine what it’s going to be like in Colorado and Montana this spring? What it’s going to be like in…”

The shot came from a high-powered rifle. There was no warning. Coming from the trees in front of us, the ear-splitting blast sounded like it was about fifty yards away. A cold chill froze my spine, and for just a splinter of that second, shock and confusion numbed my brain.

With my arm still around her waist, I felt Elaina jolt backwards. Reflexively, I tightened my grip on her and stiffened my arm, but it did no good. I could not stop her. My wife, my soul mate, my confidante, my life, lifted into the air and flew six feet backwards.

Time stood still.
Oh my good God in heaven
, I thought,
this can’t be happening
. But it was, and Elaina went down, back first, on the dusty trail. I saw her head bounce off the dirt and snap forward. Her burgundy cap flew off and blood of the same color was all over the front of her white sweatshirt. Yanking my head back around I screamed into the woods, “Nooooo, you mother fuckerrr!!! Come get me! Come get me now you fucking animal!”

Then I spun around, took two steps back, and fell knees to the ground alongside Elaina. As I held her in my arms, her cheek next to mine, I heard rustling leaves and snapping branches. I didn’t know if the shooter was heading towards me or taking off in the opposite direction. I hoped he was coming for me. Holding her by the back of her head, feeling the dirt in her short hair, my wife took her last shallow breaths.

“Elaina, Elaina, nooo, please God nooo,” I pleaded.

But in a matter of seconds, the inevitable moment arrived. Just before it did, Elaina spoke her last words. No, she whispered them, just four words. So weak were they that, had we not still been cheek to cheek, I would never have heard them. As she left to meet her maker, she said, “Tom … please … be careful.” Warm tears then coursed my cheeks and dripped onto Elaina’s. As I wept her body shuddered and quivered with mine.

Then, not a moment too soon, I spoke softly in her ear. “Don’t worry, honey, you won’t be alone for long. I promise, I’ll come to get you.”

I don’t know how long I laid there holding my Elaina, but I stayed with her on that mountain trail long after her body went cold. I can’t come close to explaining the feeling of desolation and mental agony that overcame me. The thoughts that crowded my consciousness were filled with hate and revenge, uncommon love and monumental loss.

For the longest time, I thought I’d never get up. But eventually, I did. About the time the sun was directly above us, I rose to my knees and gently rested Elaina’s head on the red Carolina soil. I picked up her cap and trudged up the incline toward the camper. With old tears and new tears clouding my vision and my equilibrium out of kilter, I kept slipping, falling, and sliding face first in the dirt. I don’t know if it happened three times or four, but I do know that each time I went down, I stayed there a while. Each time, I pounded my fists into the ground with what little strength I had left. I also cried—I wailed like a horrified man being led to the gallows.

When I finally reached the camper, I called the authorities on Elaina’s cell phone. Unfamiliar with the phone, shaking like I was, it took several efforts to dial 911 on the tiny keys. A short time later, the National Park Rangers arrived. The police and ambulance were not far behind.

The law officers told me right off that Elaina’s death had all the ingredients of a typical, careless hunting accident. After investigating the scene for two days, they said they hadn’t found a single meaningful clue, not even the spent shell. Of course, when the autopsy was performed they did find the bullet in my sweetheart’s chest. I don’t remember what caliber it was, but they said it was the one most widely used by deer hunters. They also said whoever pulled that trigger must have mistaken Elaina’s white sweatshirt for the tail of a deer.

The ironic part of this horrendous tragedy is that, if the mindless fucking cretin who ended my wife’s life
was a hunter
, he was also a poacher. Deer season in Western North Carolina hadn’t begun yet. It was still three weeks away. On top of that, the area around the Blue Ridge Parkway is a wildlife preserve, and hunting of any kind, at any time, is illegal. Although I’m fairly certain the investigators were correct in declaring Elaina’s death a hunting accident, I will carry to my grave a small gnawing doubt.

Since I was in no condition to drive, one of the police officers drove me and the RV back to the campground in Asheville. I stayed inside that camper for six straight days, most of the time curled up in bed. For a while I could still smell Elaina’s lilac perfume in the blanket and sheets. Not certain whether the scent was deepening my grief or giving me some small sense of comfort, I kept myself wrapped up in them. When the familiar fragrance began to dissipate, I sprayed more of the purple liquid onto the bed. I did this several times.

I really had no right being alone in my condition, but I was, and I wanted to be. Other than my brother, his wife, and my mother (who lived with them) there was nobody to turn to, nowhere to go. When I phoned Stanley, he insisted I come back up to Long Island and stay with them for a while. But I wasn’t about to endanger what was left of my family, and as I said before, all I wanted was to be left alone.

Since both Elaina’s parents had died in an automobile accident twelve years earlier, and she’d been an only child, there was nobody to notify in her family. She did have two cousins and an aunt, but years before her own death Elaina’s mother had a falling out with the aunt. Their small family had been estranged ever since. As for Elaina and I, we never had any children. She was unable to conceive. Although that had bothered us for many years, it now seemed like an extraordinary blessing. For there were no children to advise of their mother’s death.

Chapter 7

Exactly one week after Elaina’s passing, the RV’s permanent license plates arrived. I thought about that sleazy salesman, Kincaid, but seriously doubted he had anything to do with what had taken place. I contemplated every possible scenario and decided the odds of him being involved, particularly so soon, were miniscule. Had I known for sure that he was involved, I would have gone right back to Jersey and ended him—no matter what the consequences.

After bolting on the plates in a pouring rain, I unhooked the camper, put the Glock in my glove compartment, cranked up the engine and pulled out of that campground. I’d lost a few pounds and still looked like hell, but it was time to move on—or at least try to. I hadn’t discarded any of Elaina’s belongings. I left her toothbrush alongside mine in the holder, her new potholders where she’d hung them and her makeup in its tray on her nightstand. On my own nightstand I left her burgundy cap. Every night before going to sleep I would kiss it, and to this very day, I still do.

Before heading out of Asheville, I had to make one stop in town. As much as I dreaded it, there is no force in this world or beyond that could have stopped me. I had to go to a crematory to pick up Elaina’s remains. With all the sorrow, unhappiness, and fear for the future already weighing on every frayed nerve in my body, I didn’t know if I could handle it. All I can tell you here is that I did pick up the brass urn with its four-pound contents. I did it as quickly as I could. As I paid and signed the necessary papers, I somehow managed to fight back the flood of dark, devastating emotions swelling inside me. But as soon as the business transaction was completed and I picked up that urn, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I rushed for that door like a man on the verge of vomiting.

Stepping out of that building into the rain certainly didn’t help. Clutching Elaina to my chest as if she’d just returned from the dead, running through puddles beneath that doomsday sky, all my pent up pain and misery imploded at once. I did not retch. Along with tears, I
spewed
those vile feelings all over the asphalt parking lot. Once inside the camper, with my head and convulsing shoulders dripping wet, I continued to purge the hurt. I didn’t get rid of it all, of course. It should only be that easy. None of us are capable of ever completely shaking such an immense sense of loss. I cannot (here or anywhere else) expound any further on how I felt that day. What I’ve already described in these last two paragraphs is about as close to reliving that day as I ever want to get. I am sorry.    

It was raining even harder when I pulled onto I-26-south. Due to a fast approaching cold front a posse of low, gray, burgeoning clouds had rushed in and packed tight in the sky. The wind blew with all the force of a gale, and the way the drab rain pelted my windshield was nothing short of an assault. The oversized wipers slapped back and forth so hard it was as if they were in a panic and wanted to break free. The gunmetal sky was so low, or Asheville so high, that those clouds seemed to buff the RV’s roof as I drove. Visibility was so bad; some vehicles had pulled onto the highway’s shoulder. But I was finally rolling, and I did not want to stop.

About two hours later, I pulled off the interstate in Columbia, South Carolina. I needed coffee more than I did gas but figured I’d do the two birds with one stone thing. After pumping just shy of half a tank, I tugged my brown cap real low on my forehead and hustled through the rain into the truck stop. By now my beard and mustache were almost fully-grown.

Once inside, I headed straight for the men’s room. But I didn’t quite make it. After making my way past the cashier and through the store section I continued down a long hallway. About halfway down, I passed the entrance to a truckers lounge and just happened to glance inside. Two steps later I stopped dead in my tracks. I backpedalled to the open doorway and took a second look inside. About fifteen truckers, slouched in blue plastic seats, were watching a wall-mounted television. And on the screen of that TV was a picture of Elaina. I only caught the tail-end of what the newscaster said.

”…when we return after these messages from our sponsors.”

Standing out in the hallway, off to one side of the door, I pulled the bill of my cap lower yet. I raised the collar of my damp jacket and wished I’d had on my sunglasses. The succession of useless commercials seemed to last about fifteen minutes, though only two or three had ticked away. One promised a more exciting and sexier life if you bought their toothpaste. Another guaranteed their product would get rid of your acid reflux—even though there was a “highly unlikely chance” you could have about a dozen more serious side-effects. By the time all the nonsense ended, two more truckers had entered the room, one had left, and I had dropped my head all three times, pretending to look at my watch.

Finally the newsman with the high forehead and glasses returned, so did the picture of Elaina.

“As you first heard here last week, Elaina Soles, the wife of recent Nobel Prize recipient Thomas Soles, died in a suspected hunting accident while walking with her husband along a nature trail in Western North Carolina. This sad event took place mere days after she and Mr. Soles returned home from Stockholm to a horrific, bloody scene and a very disturbing death threat in their Queens, New York apartment.

There is now growing suspicion that these two events may be linked. Despite the findings of North Carolina authorities, many people around the country believe that both crimes may have been committed by what they call “corporate vigilantes.” Many who’ve read Thomas Soles bestselling book,
Enough is Enough
, believe that since it vilifies Corporate America, some CEO’s, and this country’s elite, may be taking revenge. While it is true that a second major bookselling chain has taken Soles’s controversial book off its shelves this week, at this point, there is no evidence of foul play.

But that’s not holding back the rising tide of suspicion and discontent that stretches from New York to California. Seeing so many people taking to the streets is reminiscent of the tumultuous 1960’s and 70’s. On Friday, here in Manhattan, an estimated 15,000 protesters carrying signs and chanting, “enough is enough” showed up in front of the New York Stock Exchange. Yesterday, Chicago’s Grant Park had a similar demonstration, and there are still others planned later this week for Boston, Detroit, Denver and L.A.

As always, we will keep you posted on any forthcoming developments in this story.”