[Odd, Graceful, Ruthlessly, Extravagance, Imitate]
Anais was at the front door at precisely seven thirty, she wouldn’t be happy if I was ready so I had dithered around in the store for a little while, Amy was of course anxious to begin the investigation. So she was ready and waiting by the front door by seven twenty five. It’s petty but if it keeps Anais happy it’s worth it. She is driving so I owe her this.
I would have been ready because I am pretty anxious to get the bartender's view on the arrest. I was hoping to have at least a little good news when I talked to Eve tomorrow. This was all happening rather fast. I knew the charge was only a B misdemeanor, but five days to find proof that Faith wasn’t an escort. That Jones had arrested yet another innocent girl. It’d be funny if it wasn’t Faith’s life and dreams on the line.
There was something that had been bothering me about Faith’s story, about the arrest and all the events leading up to it. It’s not that I didn’t believe her, no it wasn’t the events leading to the arrest it was the events afterward. But what exactly it was I just couldn’t put my finger on it.
If it hasn't come to me by the time I get home, I’ll put the whole mess into Obsidian, in atomic notes. Then maybe it’ll make more sense. It’s not the notes that are important, it’s the connections.
Amy opened the front door to let Anais in.
I yelled at them both. “I just have to get my coat, be right down.”
But I was surprised by the reply. “No need for that, Laura, I bought you a new coat. It’ll be just perfect for you. I would have gotten you a fedora but I didn’t know your hat size.” She held a classic tan trenchcoat in her arms.
“Anais, you shouldn’t have, that looks like it was very expensive.”
“I just wanted you to be on time for once in your life Laura, just once. It’d be cheap if it cost a million dollars, besides if you are going to be a detective you need to dress the part.”
I actually had a fedora upstairs, I’d picked it up in a Salvation Army one day. I thought it’d be great for a Halloween costume someday. But now I felt guilty for baiting Anais. I wouldn’t even be able to buy her drinks to pay her back as she was driving.
Then we were on the road to Saranac, I looked every bit the part of the amateur sleuth. I’d never tell Anais this, but the coat just wasn’t as warm and fuzzy as my vintage coat is. It wasn’t long and we were parked right in front of the bar. Sunday night, with no band. Amy grabbed us a table while I went to get some beers for her and I and a soda for Anais, our designated driver.
“Could I please ask you a few questions about the arrest on Friday night?”
“Sure, just give me a second, to refill everyone at the bar and I’m all yours.”
While he took care of his customers, I brought Amy and Anais their drinks. There was only one other table, occupied tonight. A group of four or five young women. Amy had picked a table right beside them. With the drinks delivered, I went back to the bar and waited for the bartender.
“Okay, lady, what did you want to know?”
“Well, could you just describe what you saw?”
“Sure, the woman who was arrested, came in and sat down, here at the bar.” He pointed to a seat. “She ordered a drink, and asked where all the stumpies were. Ladies night is usually a magnet for the loggers as we fill the place with women. If the boss was smart, he’d have ladies night a few times a week, usually the women only pay for their first drink, then it’s the men buying the drinks for the women and they don’t get half price drinks even if they are buying for a woman. That aside, your friend, I give her her drink and before it’s half gone, this older guy comes over and sits next to her and asks to buy her a drink.”
“Was he already in the bar, or did he come in after her?”
“He was already here, sitting at the bar over there.” He nodded to where Jones had been sitting. “But he had guts this guy, because your friend is way out of his league. I have no doubt if the stumpies had been here, she’d have refused his offer, unless she has a thing for older guys.”
“No, you are exactly right, she told me so herself. So did he buy her more than one drink?”
“Oh, yeah, he bought her three or four.”
This was good, the longer she sat there with him the less likely that she was an escort.
“Could you say about how long they were here before he arrested her?”
“Sure, I can tell you almost exactly. See he came in around a half hour before her, at nine ten, and he arrested her at twelve thirty three.”
“How can you know the exact times like that?”
“Because he was running a tab, I put the first charge on his bill at nine ten and I ran the charge at twelve thirty three. After you left last night, I searched for the credit card receipt.”
“Oh, you are a genius, could I please snap a photo of the receipt for her defense attorney.”
“No need, I printed you a copy of it. I didn’t like that guy before he arrested that girl, and she is no more a prostitute than I am. Anything I can do to aid her defense, I’d be happy too.”
He handed me a copy of the receipt, and I gave him a generous tip. Then I went over to sit with Anais and Amy.
“Did you find out anything, Laura”
“Yeah Amy, she sat at the bar for three hours, no way an escort would waste her time with Jones without being paid. Plus the bartender gave me a copy of the receipt, proving the times are correct. Would you like another drink, Amy, Anais?”
“Sure, how about one more,” said Amy. I went up and got us another round, on the house. This bartender was a real sweetheart. I delivered the drinks. But I didn't sit down, instead I went to the table next to ours.
“Hi ladies, my friend was arrested in here on Friday night. I was wondering if perhaps any of you saw anything that might help her out at her trial?”
“Look grandma, we didn’t see nothing. We were just here drinking and minding our own business.”
“What business might that be? The same business you were up to last night, when you sat here and with each male who approached your table one of you disappeared for twenty or thirty minutes before returning alone. Do the guys get their pick or do you go in rotation?”
“Our business ain't none of yours, now get lost, before you get hurt.”
“No problem ladies, no problem. I certainly don’t want to fight.”
I went over and sat down with Amy and Anais. Sitting where we were, they’d heard every word. So there was no need to say any more about what had just transpired. Jones has to be about the worst detective in the world. An entire table of escorts, sat her and plied their trade in front of him. While he manages to arrest the one woman in the bar who isn’t in the trade.
It was no skin off my nose if those young women were working in here. It also wouldn’t help Faith’s case any, at least as far as I could see. We left the bar soon after, I think we’d learned just about all that could possibly be learned here.
I was going to go home and put all of this information into Obsidian. I’d try and link what I could and see if that sparked any bright ideas. An hour later I was looking at my digital whiteboard, it contained all of my notes and the one piece of evidence I had the receipt that proved the time entered and left. When the idea sizzled into my head. It was too late to call Eve, so I just texted her a copy of my notes and ideas. She would figure out the legal stuff, I had no doubt about that.
I crawled into bed with a true comfort read, my favorite nonfiction book of all time. Pretty soon I was watching as he constructed his cabin and began his year by the pond. Really who gives a damn who did his laundry. He didn’t move to the pond to prove he was a survivalist or explorer. He moved there to think and explore his mind and thoughts. To live simply and cheaply and distraction free. I made it all the way to the Beanfield before I turned off my light.
Lucy was at the register, looking over one of her marginalia books. She had come up with a pretty good idea, of how to store and display the marginalia. The book shelf had been moved from in front of the sales counter to a quieter, more secluded area of the store. If someone want to read one of the marginalia books, they didn’t need Lucy or I knowing about it. The entire experiment was anonymous, you grabbed your book, wrote your marginalia then returned the book.
That's where Lucy’s bright idea came into play. The books weren’t stacked as they normally are in a bookcase. No, they were stored laying on their side. It was easy to remove any of the books in the pile, but when they were returned people invariably just plunked them down on top. That way Lucy grabbed the top two books on each pile every day. Then we’d just leaf through them to see if anything new had been added.
When we were finished looking the marginalia over, Lucy would return the books and randomize the piles so the same books weren’t left on top. It’s been working very well. We haven’t even lost a book yet, which I find amazing. It’s not that I think our customers are thieves, but free books being returned has to be a rather low priority in the busy lives most of the people who buy us lead.
There has been some great marginalia, jokes, poems, artwork. Heartfelt reviews both in favor of the book and how this book should have remained a tree. We had spent less than fifty dollars for a used book case and all of the books. Many had been donated when Lucy informed the yard sale merchants to what purpose she was planning to do with the books. Some of those merchants have become regular customers, supplying us with both trade and marginalia of their own.
“What time did you arrive?”
“Eight.”
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“Still fighting with your father about the Benoits. Did you tell him about Vitale coming in to apologize? I would have thought that might mollify him at least a little.”
“Yeah, I told him, but it didn’t do much. Sometimes I think the only thing that my father cares about is what the rest of the clergy think about him. That and his own congregation. If you had had me arrested when I took that book. I’m sure I would have been sent off to a convent, or at the very least a convent school.”
“Four or five hundred years ago, you might have been begging to be sent to a nunnery.”
“Why?”
“Well any sixteen or even younger, young woman of any standing would be married off to a man of thirty to sixty or older husband. Many women thought that a life in the nunnery was much preferable to that. Plus the nuns lived a lot longer, childbearing was more dangerous than any battlefield the men had ever trodden upon and a lot more painful. A sword in the gut, I am sure hurts terribly, but you’d also bleed out and die a lot quicker. Giving birth for the first time might take fifteen hours not counting early labor. It’s quicker for subsequent children but not by a lot and still just as dangerous, sometimes more because you are not that young strong woman that gave birth the first time.”
Lucy had been continuing to look through the marginalia books as we’d talked.
“Laura, this one is for you, about your…”
“You are the woman who publicly shamed my wife. You are going to hell woman, straight to hell.”
“Look buddy I don’t know who the hell you are, but I don’t believe in hell. You shouldn’t either, there isn’t a shred of evidence that it exists.”
“If you stocked the bible like every good bookstore in a christian nation ought, you’d see for yourself in black and white.”
“I don’t know what country you are from but I live in the United States, where we have freedom of religion. Now can I help you with a book, I’ll be happy to have a bible drop shipped to you at cost. Go find a christian bookstore that will do that and I’ll eat my hat.”
“You are a virus, atheists are the germs that attack the church.”
“I’ve never had an atheist turn up on my doorstep trying to convert me, nor do I know of any atheists that sailed to the new world and converted the natives to atheists, before stealing their land and then when the natives decided to fight back the christians murder them. But I understand where you get it from, with your bloodthirsty god, it makes perfect sense.”
“My god is not bloodthirsty he is just.”
“Let’s see according to your great and holy book, God destroyed the whole world except for one family, because mankind didn’t obey him. Then he took out Sodom and Gomorrah, your god is a baby killer. You deny a woman the right to choose but worship a god who is renowned for killing infants and other children."
“He is not, he is righteous and good and he loves us.”
“And you are delusional, according to the bible, he killed all the babies, born and unborn in Sodom and Gomorrah, in the whole world in Noah, in Egypt in Moses. I thought your god was all knowing, knew everything that had happened and would happen. Yet he couldn’t think of a method to get what he wanted without murdering a load of kids. I’m still recovering from being in a coma but I can think of just a few ways he could have gotten what he wanted if he really is the all powerful god you claim that he is.”
“My wife was right about you, you are dangerous.”
“I’m not the one who lied about a child, that would be your wife. If she was so righteous herself and hadn’t come back spreading her lies, no one would have known about her meltdown in my store. Until she accused my intern of attacking her, I had no intention of using that video.”
“You are just like satan, you twist everything that is good to evil”
“Satan is as imaginary as your god, show me the tiniest of evidence that either of them exists.”
“You come to know God through faith.”
“Hmm, so you have to believe something before it is true. That’s what you are saying?”
“Yes, that’s what faith is.”
“Ok, now it makes sense why in the Noah story he didn’t kill every human, just ninety nine point nine percent of us. If he had killed us all, then he would have ceased to exist as well.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Yes it is, " I said ‘you have to believe something before it is true.’ you agreed that is what faith is that was true. If that is true then the reverse of that is false. So if no one believed, your god wouldn’t exist at all.”
“You are twisting my words.”
“I haven’t twisted anything, I didn’t come to your church and tell your flock that just for once they should actually ask some questions. How did you even become a christian? Was it your parents? If you were born in India you’d have been a hindu or a muslim. So how can you know that you have the one true god. You believe in Jesus and you also believe in the United States, right? What I’m really asking is do you believe in democracy? That the majority opinion is right in a country.”
“Yes usually.”
“How did you get to be what you are or do you pick your religion at random?”
“My father was a preacher, he taught me, and he was right.”
“But you live in your words a christian country but you christians can’t even decide what your bible says, it’s such a mess. That’s why there are so many opinions. If you truly believe in Jesus and also democracy or at least crowd sourced knowledge you’d have to be catholic, they are the largest sect in the country. So you should be a priest and decidedly not married.”
“You can’t twist my words, witch.”
“Again another concept I don’t believe in, no such thing as witches but that didn’t stop you christians from murdering millions. Last question.“Riddle me this, Batman.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
“My wife was one hundred percent right about you.”
“No answer for the riddle? You lot usually point to god as the moral authority, without him there can be no morality.”
“Yes, you know exactly that is the answer.”
“Wrong again preacher, that is circular logic. First you’d have to accept that god was the moral authority. I reject that god is the moral authority, I reject that you need any authority at all. I state that there is only one sin. If you just do not break that one sin you will lead the most virtuous life. Greed, don’t be greedy, you will live a good and moral life, just that one principle. No need to invent gods and demons and rule upon rule upon rule. See you should be thanking me. I just wrote your sermon for you this week.”
“There are a myriad of sins beyond greed.”
“See that’s what they don’t teach you guys in divinity school, how to think. Instead they teach pages and pages of rules to follow. Instead they should teach you to reason things out for yourself. Take murder one of the worst acts a person can commit agreed?”
“Yes, agreed.”
“So unless a person is mentally unbalanced, and not responsible for their actions, people murder for sex, money, power, or to prevent something secret from being revealed. Each and every motive is greedy, if I kill x I can have sex with y. If I kill x I will gain power, If I kill x I can have their money. If I kill x my secret won’t come out, my greed to keep the status quo. See you just have to look at any action, work it backwards and it always comes back to greed. I can even give you the formula for a happy life, avoid greed, if you wish to be happy, be happy with what you have. I didn’t make this stuff up, great thinkers wrote books you can read them too.”
“The only book I need is the bible.”
“Well I can sell you that too but it will need to be drop shipped to you.”
“Why do you sell a book that you clearly have so much disdain for?”
“I’m a book seller, not a moral authority. If a customer asks my opinion about a certain book, I’ll happily give it. But I don’t ban books. If a customer comes in and orders Mein Kampf, I’ll do my best to get it for him and assume he is a researcher studying the roots of fascism not a fascist themselves. But I’d sell it at cost, because it would be greedy to make money off of a book that caused such suffering. The same reason I sell bibles at cost. So you see both fascists and true believers get the same discount. So should I ring you up a sale, preacher? Or was there something else that you wanted, because I have more to do today than argue with a man about his core beliefs, because nothing I say will in any way change your mind. But maybe someday you think back to today and say to yourself, "I really should just reason it out for myself and stop taking someone else's word for it.”
“I wouldn’t buy anything in this shop, and I’ll advise my flock as well, just know that god will strike you down for mocking him. Then you will stand in judgement before him.”
“Well, if I’m wrong and you are right, at least one question will be answered. Why did you kill all those babies in the old testament?”
He turned on his heel and strode through the doors, he tried to slam it for effect. But I have one of the pneumatic tubes things attached to the door. I’ve offended enough people in my life that I consider this a necessary precaution for any door I’m in the vicinity of.
“How come you didn’t unload like that on my father. I would have loved to sit and watch him squirm.”
“Because I realized that the thing I’m most greedy for at this time of my life is time. You really get to see it as the precious resource it is. You my dear, are giving me time, and I even kind of like you too. So if I had ranted like that at your father the day I met you, am I likely to have ever seen you again. No, I don't think so. So I tempered my views. See while christians feel it is their moral duty to make everyone else their brand of christian, I don’t have a moral duty to do the same. If being a christian truly makes them happy, who am I to take that away from them, unless they are just in my face about saving my immortal soul, something I don’t believe in. I’m more than content to just let them be. I have to go read after that, he got me all riled up. But that’s ok, a couple of chapters of Walden and I’ll be right as rain.”
I didn’t even make it to the reading nook, before Lucy called me back to the counter.
“Lucy, I just told you that I liked you, don’t ruin that by eating into my reading time, I really do need to calm down after arguing with idiots like that.”
“No Laura you’ve got to read this marginalia, it was what I wanted to show you before he came in.”
I put down Walden and picked up. I’m OK, You’re Ok. on Page eighty three the marginalia was scrawled. “There is an escort service running in every bar in Saranac” Well, I already knew that the girls we sat next to last night were. But we never went to any of the other bars. Do we really need to? They have a pretty good sized police department. If a girl felt she needed to do that for a living, who am I to tell her that she is wrong. I’ll ask Eve if I should find out more or just let it lie.
