“This is an issue that will take people in every county leaning on their delegates.” Harry knew the drill. “We’ve got to educate the public, then mobilize them. Usually an elected official is smart enough to know what side his bread is buttered on. And, of course, there are always those jerks who try to make a splash by arguing against anything no matter what it is. Has it ever occurred to anyone that democracy is an expensive, inconclusive system that just drags out suffering on every level?”
“Harry.” Liz’s bejeweled hand flew to her breast. “I’ve never heard you speak like that.”
“Oh, Liz, I didn’t mean to upset you. Sometimes our foolishness, the corruption, just gets to me,” Harry said quietly.
“Who was it that said democracy is a terrible system but better than anything else?” Susan wondered.
“Good thought.” Liz walked behind the counter. “Anything tempting?”
“Everything.” Susan admired a gorgeous beaded bracelet from South Africa.
“I want to buy Number Eleven.” Harry pulled her checkbook from her rear jeans pocket.
Rarely using credit cards, Harry paid by cash or check. She figured given how often credit card information was stolen, and the time it took to rectify matters, it was best not to use them except in those cases where it is much easier, like buying an airline ticket.
Susan, now herself surprised at her best friend, asked, “And what are you going to do with Number Eleven?”
The bag of chits, on the counter now, had the contents emptied out as Liz sifted through the beautifully engraved pieces with the Garth name for Number Eleven.
Susan quickly added for Liz’s comfort, “I’m not trying to kill a sale, but we all know Harry probably has tucked away the first dollar she ever earned.”
Liz laughed. “Harry, you’re no doubt smarter than the rest of us, but I operate on the principle that you can’t take it with you.”
“Hear. Hear,” Susan chimed in.
“Ah.” Liz held up Number Eleven.
Susan examined it closely. “The script is gorgeous.” Then she checked out many of the other brass rectangles. “They’re really lovely, and when you think that they conferred temporary freedom of movement, I wonder about the important errands a slave must have carried out to be given one of these. Delivering goods, news, reporting emergencies, reaching people who needed things.”
Harry held Number Eleven in her palm, turned it over. “Looks like a little mark.” She flipped over other chits, also marked. “Hmm, maybe the engraver was testing his tools before actually engraving Garth and the number.”
The door opened.
“Ladies,” Panto Noyes greeted them. “Susan, I just came from a meeting with your husband about the old schoolhouses. He’s behind us and I’ve contacted all the tribes, recognized and not, to write their state legislators.”
“Great,” Susan exclaimed. “You have more contacts than anyone.”
“Helps that I’ve been dancing in powwows since I was a kid. I do know everybody.”
“Big plus for a lawyer, too.” Liz smiled. “What can I do for you?”
“As always, I came in to admire that Sioux deerskin. The red-and-white quills, the design, well, it inspires me.”
“Me, too,” Liz agreed.
“And I came in to see if you would donate an item to our tribal fund-raiser. It’s for scholarships.” He saw the chits but didn’t comment.
“Of course.”
“The best year we ever had for the fund-raiser was 2007. Fifty-two thousand dollars.” He beamed. “Then came the crash. We were lucky to clear ten thousand, but bless MaryJo. She invests for the tribe, nonprofit, and she does a hell of a job. Before she came on board I did the investments. No one else would do it. But she’s a star.”
“She must read tea leaves,” Harry joked.
He smiled. “I wonder about that myself, but, you know, some people just have a knack.”
“Like Warren Buffett.” Liz nodded.
“That’s the top of the top. But around here think of guys like Mark Catron, Derwood Chase. There’s a small club of shrewd investors.”
“Men?” Harry lifted her eyebrows.
“Mostly. Marge Connolly, although she retired. No, there are women,” Panto quickly replied. “And younger women are moving into finance.”
Harry paid for Number Eleven, chatted a bit more, and the two returned to the station wagon where three crabby animals awaited, the windows cracked for the cool, fresh air.
“You should have taken us,” Pewter complained.
None of the three thought about the wisdom of running about a busy parking lot.
“Home,” Harry cheerily said to the three in the back.
“Tuna better be there,” Pewter grumbled.
“Steak.” Mrs. Murphy felt like red meat.
Tucker, uninterested in the food discussion, leapt into the front seat by scrambling over the divider between the two front seats.
“Tucker. You’re bigger than you look.” Harry grasped her small sun-yellow shopping bag from Liz, the interior tissue an azure blue.
“Now that it’s the two of us, why did you buy Number Eleven?” Susan inquired.
“I don’t know. It’s…it’s almost a compulsion. I’m putting it on a gold box chain I have and will wear it under my sweaters and shirts. I don’t know why and I paid one hundred dollars, so you know it’s a compulsion.”
Someone else shared that compulsion, more or less. They sat in the parking lot, computer at hand in their lap in the dead of night and disabled Liz Potter’s shop alarm system. Whoever it was went in, took all the beaded bracelets, short jackets with beaded shoulder stripes, as well as the $25,000 western Sioux dress, and other things.
October 27, 2016 Thursday
Sitting side by side in front of Cynthia Cooper’s desk computer, Sheriff Rick Shaw and his deputy stared intently at the screen.
He breathed out his nostrils. “It’s a match.”
Also exhaling, Cooper nodded. “Is.”
“Go back to the building,” he told her.
Within seconds a pale beige brownstone with dark green shutters appeared on the screen. Next to the lighter green wooden door, a handsome brass plaque appeared. Pierre Rice Inc. was engraved in lovely script with flourishes. Underneath the name, also in script, was Private Investigator, and underneath that, also beautifully done in old script, was the number 5.
“That number again.” Rick pushed his chair closer to the screen.
The county had upgraded all their computers, hardware, everything electronic. The image on the large screen was crystal clear, not a hint of fuzziness.
“Well, it is the house number on a very expensive Georgetown Street in D.C.,” Cooper reminded the sheriff.
“I know,” he grumbled. “Still, he wore the chit around his neck. Number Five.”
“Well, Boss, maybe he liked that he found a slave chit with his street address.”
“Maybe, Coop, but how did he find Liz and her store? And why? According to Liz, she put pictures of the brass rectangles on the store website a month ago. Says the website is invaluable to her business.”
Fingering the keyboard, she quietly replied, “I don’t know, but it probably isn’t insignificant. What I want to find out is how much money he made. He owned that house. A brownstone in Georgetown is hideously expensive.”
“Anything in Washington is hideously expensive.” Rick snorted.
“That’s my point. He probably had contracts for government work or corporate investigations. As he was not employed by the government he could use methods frowned upon by Congress, the judiciary, et cetera.”