seymoure

Nick Cavano

“As you age naturally, your family shows
more and more on your face.
If you deny that, you deny your heritage.”
-Frances Conroy

The ride to Longday Farm was longer than it would have been if the roads had been better. The last 20 miles were over unpaved road. You might wonder how one of the richest families in the country could live somewhere without good roads, but the answer was a simple one. As we drove we generated a cloud of dust and a rumble of wheels on gravel. It was nearly as good an alarm system as having your own crop of geese. You would not get close to the place without being known. If you had come on foot the dogs (and strangely enough geese) would announce your approach.

I knew the place because a year ago I had spent quite a bit of time around the ranch. Cavano’s granddaughter had been abducted and held for a $20 million ransom.

The girl’s father had been killed a few years ago and her mother had been wounded in the same attack, leaving her in a wheelchair. The mother hated the entire life that she was now forced to live, and she was the first place to look. Twenty million would set someone up for an independent life, so I had to look at her.

After finding that the woman had no one close enough in the house to plan anything like that, I left her off the list. But I was certain it had to be an inside job.

This was bolstered when, after the old man had insisted on proof the kidnappers had the girl and she was alive, he received a picture of the girl with the same day’s newspaper and a box containing her newly amputated small toe.

That was when I knew it had to be someone close. Someone without any ties would have cut off a finger. But, if you had an emotional link you would consider the damage you were doing. The biggest problem was that the girl was diabetic, something that the family had kept secret. The fact that none of her medication had been taken was my clue that the girl was not in on it. She would not have left herself hanging like that. I then checked the pharmacy in every drugstore in town (an epic thing even with the help of the police) and no one had gotten a new demand for that medicine.

Before that was done, my “follow all the people who ever leave the ranch” network caught one of Cavano’s Lieutenants taking an unscheduled trip down to the River Quay and a supposedly empty warehouse. There the girl was retrieved without a shot being fired.

I got a lot of money and a pledge of aid whenever I needed it from the old man himself.

As we pulled up to the front of the ranch house I was glad that I was known, since there were 4 or 5 heavily armed men on the roof and all of them wore faces that were anything but welcoming.

When Hugo stood after getting out of the car, even they were on edge. I wondered if they thought he was MacPherson.

I was struck by their constraint at not shooting him right away. I was glad, of course, but I was surprised.