Thomas Prescott Superpack (49 page)

Harold wasn’t sure how early they arrived.
He guessed they got there pretty early to beat the heat, so he got in position at five-thirty.

The men arrived promptly at six, each carrying a box.
Harold wasn’t sure what was in the boxes. They came to the gate and it was unlocked by a well-dressed fat man. His hair was slicked back and he greeted them with a sneer. He looked familiar. Like one of Harold’s commanders from his days in the army. He stuck a key in the large gate lock. 

Harold made his move.
He crossed the street and bellied up to the back of the group. One by one, they walked past the man at the gate. When Harold passed, the man put his arm out. He said, “Never seen you before, boy.”

Harold managed, “I’m new.
They decided to add a man so we can get out of here quicker.”

The large man contemplated this, then let Harold through.
He locked up the gate and Harold followed the men to a shed. One of the guys
—
a kid around Harold’s age with a shaved head and a thin mustache
—
turned and said, “Don’t mind him. That’s the dean of the school. He’s an asshole.” The guy stuck out his hand. “I’m Jimmy.”

Harold stuck with Jimmy, who was in charge of washing windows.
There were 117 in all. Jimmy liked to talk. And two hours in and twenty-eight windows later, according to Jimmy’s count, Harold had almost forgotten why he was there in the first place.

At nine, the rooms started to fill up.
Jimmy said, “Just ignore ‘em.”

A couple of girls made small waves at them.
Or winked. Harold blushed a couple times. He thought if he saw Elizabeth he would most certainly fall off his ladder.

At eleven, the grounds filled up with the young women.
Harold peered around every so often, but for the most part he concentrated on the job at hand. He was having trouble keeping up with the speedy Jimmy. A half hour later, the rooms filled back up and Jimmy said it was time for a break. The seven men, plus Harold, found a spot in the shade, and each opened up the box they’d been carrying. Lunch.

Harold couldn’t believe he forgot to pack a lunch.
For the first time in a long time, he was starving. One of the other guys, Harold was pretty sure his name was Robby, asked, “Why ain’t you eatin?”

Harold grinned sheepishly.
“Forgot my lunch on the kitchen table. And on my first day, of all things.”

The guys took a laugh at this.
Jimmy ripped a large chunk of sandwich off and handed it to him. Each of the other six men did the same. Harold felt an instant camaraderie he hadn’t felt since the army. The eight of them ate and talked shop for an hour. Harold mostly listened. Someone brought up the war and Harold chimed in. When the guys found out Harold had been in the war, D-Day even, they peppered him with questions. By the end of the day he was just one of the guys.

They broke for the day and Harold asked Jimmy, “Where are you guys going tomorrow?”

They were doing another college on the other side of town. Harold was there. With a lunch box. They did another college on Friday. Harold was there. Harold walked by the school twice over the weekend. Girls came and went, but Harold didn’t see Elizabeth. They did a large private estate on Monday and Tuesday. Harold was there. The next Wednesday came fast.

Harold quickly became friends with all seven guys.
Jimmy, Robby, Marky, Jake, Ben, Jerry, and Perry.

Harold saw a couple girls he thought might have been Elizabeth.
There was one girl he was sure was her, but after tapping the glass, she turned and it wasn’t.

On Friday, Jimmy handed Harold an envelope.
When Harold opened it and found it filled with cash, he looked surprised. Jimmy said, “I thought something was fishy about you.”

Harold was silent.

Jimmy shrugged, “I don’t much care. I told the boss I hired another guy to help with the windows. Said he preferred to be paid in cash if that was all right. Boss shrugged and said he didn’t much care as long as the job gets done.”

Harold and the guys hit a bar after work on Friday.
Harold didn’t remember ever having so much fun.

Summer came and the school cleared out, so he didn’t have to worry about seeing Elizabeth.
In August the girls came back.

It happened the first week of September.

It was about a half hour before the girls would break, and Jimmy and Harold were working on the south building. They usually did the north building second, but the sun had moved over the months and they kept the shade the longest if they got the south building out of the way early. Harold had for the most part stopped his incessant scanning of the classrooms, but every once in awhile he would sneak a peek. 

He’d never seen the group he saw that day as he peered into the small classroom. On the blackboard behind the teacher he could see some scribbles that he thought looked like poetry.
Every once in awhile, a girl would come to the front and read from a notebook. Harold watched as one girl sat down and another stood up. She walked to the front and turned.

It was Elizabeth.

Harold couldn’t breath.
He watched as she read from her notebook.

Jimmy said, “What’s wrong?
Come on, we’re laggin’ behind here, Harry.”

He ignored Jimmy and watched Elizabeth.
Her chest heaved as she read, and he could see tears running down her cheeks. She was crying. Elizabeth walked back to her seat, head down, never looking in his direction.

Later at lunch, Harold ate his ham and cheese in silence as the others told stories.
Robby asked, “Why you so quiet over there, Harry?”

Harold looked around, and then he told them.
He told them the whole story. An hour break turned into a two-hour break. No one spoke. They hung on his every word. When he was done, Marky asked, “What are you going to do?”

Harold sighed and said, “What can I do?”

Jimmy smiled and said, “I have an idea.”

And so the eight of them hatched a plan.

“Hatched a plan?”
I shook my head. “What are you, a bunch of bank robbers?”

Harold laughed.
And then he coughed. And then he coughed some more. By the time I returned with the nurse, Harold was coughing so violently I thought he was going to break in half.

The nurse injected a syringe into his IV, removed Harold’s glasses and put the mask over his face.
His coughing slowed. A minute later, Harold’s breathing had stabilized.

I took a deep breath.

The nurse, Oprah, came over to me and said, “You okay?”

I nodded.

She patted me on the arm and said, “Don’t worry, he’ll be all right.”

After she left, I watched Harold for a good ten minutes.
Then I grabbed the Sharpie off the counter and signed Harry’s cast.

Chapter 40

The Seattle freeway system for the most part is a never-ending logjam; however, today, the first Monday of the New Year, it teetered on undriveable.

I looked at the dash: 9:27
A.M.
I’d started merging onto the on-ramp at 9:03. I was maybe a third of the way up and I hadn’t moved in five minutes. Things started to loosen up an hour later, and I made it to Capitol Hill right around eleven.

These government types are creatures of habit, at least the ones I’d come across, so I took up a seat in the small café.
At exactly 11:20
A.M.
, Kim made his way into the café and took up a spot in the sandwich bar line. Today he was decked out in lime. Lime dress shirt, lime tie. He looked like a Popsicle. A very gay Popsicle.

He paid for his sandwich and coffee and made for a table in the rear.
He didn’t notice me, or pretended not to, and I made my way over to his table. He was just about to take a bite of his wrap when he looked up at me.

I patted him on the shoulder and said, “You mind?”

He choked down the bite and said, “Sure. But I’m meeting with Bill Eggers in about ten minutes.”

I sat.
“So did Ellen go hiking often?”

“Not really.
She’d just recently gotten into it. She’d driven to the North Cascades sometime in early September. Then she’d gone pretty much every weekend after that.”

Hmmm.
“And she just liked the outdoors?”

“I guess.”

He paused and I said, “What?”

“Well, sometimes I’d talk to her after she was done hiking and she’d always seem depressed.
Like she’d just spent ten hours at a press conference.”

Odd.

A thought struck me. “The backpack that they found?”

“What about it?”

“Wasn’t there a camera?”

“It was one of the disposable jobbies.”

“Were there any pictures on it?”

“Only had two shots on it. One was of a fox. The other was of a footprint.”

“A footprint?”

“Well, an animal track.”

“What kind of animal?”

He paused, then said, “It was a wolf track.”

Back to the wolves.

“What was Ellen’s infatuation with wolves?”

He looked around the small coffee shop, then said, “She detested them.”

“Detested them?
Then why was she lobbying for people to vote yes on Ballot Measure 217?”

“She wasn’t.”

I was confused. “I saw a photograph of her standing in front of a group of people and they all had signs that read, ‘Vote YES on 217.’”

“Those were
protestors.
”

It took a moment for the shoe to fall.
“So Ellen was
against
Measure 217.”

“Fervently
against.”

He paused, then said, “Measure 217 was a repeal of SE 1670.”

“What’s SE 1670? Is that the new Lexus?” 

“SE 1670 was Ellen’s first bill put into law.”

He messed around with his Blackberry, tapped a couple buttons, then turned it to me.

SENATE BILL REPORT

SE 1670

As Reported By Senate Committee On:

U.S Fish and Wildlife Committee, April 3, 2007

Title: An act relating to gray wolf management

Brief Description:
Prohibiting the introduction of the gray wolf into the State of Washington

Sponsors:
Governor Ellen Gray

Committee Activity:
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: 2/25/06, 3/3/06

SENATE COMMITTEE ON U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Majority Report:
Do pass

Signed by Senators Okey, Chair; Sheahnan, Vice Chair; Doumite, Eser, Mortin and Stecker

Staff: Victor Mooney (786-7469)

I looked up.
“Okay, so she hated wolves. Why?”

He took a deep breath and said, “Wolves have always been a sensitive topic, by and large the most sensitive of any animal in North America.”

“I’ve heard that.”

“When they reintroduced wolves to Yellowstone National Park a couple years back, it started all sorts of conflict.
There’s a saying—”

I quipped, “Wolves can get along with people, but people can’t always get along with wolves.”

“Right.”

“But with all the other things going on, how did Ellen Gray make time to protest wolves returning to Washington?”

He licked his lips and said, “What I’m about to tell you only a handful of people know. Ellen once told me she never even told her husband.”

I nodded.

“Ellen rarely talked about her childhood.
She left home when she was sixteen. She kept in contact with one brother, but for the most part she erased her family from her past. She grew up on a ranch. Her parents’ raised livestock, which, back then—in the 60’s—wasn’t a bad way to make a living.”

“Wisconsin, right?”

“Right. Anyhow, she had three older brothers and one younger brother. The younger brother adored her. Went everywhere she went. One day, Ellen is home alone with him. They aren’t allowed to leave the house because in the last weeks they’d lost over a third of their cattle to a wolf pack. Happened a lot back then.”

I saw where this was going.

“Ellen didn’t go into the details, but she was playing with her brother and he went outside. They were running around and next thing she knew, three wolves pounced on him and ripped him to shreds.”

I leaned back.

“Her family blamed her. She blamed herself. She never wanted it to get out because no one would take her bill seriously if they found out.” He paused then said, “Ellen Gray has single-handedly kept wolves out of Washington for the last four years.”

“Until now.”

He nodded. “Until now.”