seymoure

New Horizons Every Day

“Everybody keeps telling me how surprised they are with what I've done. But I'm telling you honestly that it doesn't surprise me. I knew I could do it.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

It was a long drive back to the hotel. Every turn was a “Lady or the Tiger” experience.

This church seemed to have an army willing to throw itself at us at any turn. No matter what your ability, the weight of numbers and the element of surprise can always do you in. Ask any of my friends who are combat vets; they will tell you. When you cannot tell friend from foe and you cannot shoot everyone, you are playing in a dangerous league.

Our two vehicles entered the parking garage, and it seemed the tension just elevated. They could have been waiting for us all the time and we knew it. Every untoward sound was a shock; every funny smell was a fuse ready to go off.

I thought about where we might feel safe. It would normally have been home, but home had been blown up and burned out.

We decided to split up and some go up in elevators and the other group to take the 4 flights of stairs to the new suites we had checked out this morning and then sent a dozen local cops to sit on since.

We had to do something before this paranoia made us worthless as investigators.

Which was, of course, just the point.

When the doors opened I felt, for a moment, like safety had been reached. No one had been allowed on this floor but our security people.

When we walked into the suite to find the group rushing about a fallen comrade, that idea of safety flew out the window.

When we found that they were ministering to a deputy who had sliced his hand while cutting a sandwich in half to share with a fellow, we all had to stifle our laughter.

We dismissed the Sheriff’s crew to take him to the hospital and the rest to take up stations in the stair wells. We also had the hotel lock out our floor from the elevators until we might want to use them.

“Mr. Savage,” the injured man called to me.

“Yes,” I tried to find a name tag of some kind so I could call him by name, but failed, “Deputy?”

“I cut myself,” he began while holding a bandage on his hand.

“I know and I’m sorry…” I began.

“No, what I was saying was that I cut myself because I was distracted.”

I stopped the several things I was doing and really listened to him.

“I was reading the message on your golden bull,” he attempted to point at the Calf, “I think you were mistaken.”

Len stepped closer, “How so?”

“You said that it was burned and the message became partially unreadable, correct?”

Max came closer, “Yeah, the last half.”

“But it isn’t,” he smiled, “Those words are not damaged English. They are Yiddish, they are harder to read because the damage to the paper is wrinkled and makes it looked damaged.”

“Yiddish?” Somewhere the spirit of my wife was shaking her head.

“I couldn’t read it all, but I did recognize it. My Zayda used to write me notes in Yiddish for my birthday.”

“Thank you, my friend,” I took his shoulder in a firm, thankful grasp, “I think you may have put us to detective shame.”

“I sure wish you’d tell my boss that, maybe I could get a promotion,” he smiled up hopefully.

“Not only that,” I leaned over and whispered in his ear, “You can come to Kansas City when all this is over and when we are re-constituting my agency, and you can get a try-out as a Private Investigator at one of the premiere firms in the world.”

His face told me he hadn’t even considered the possibility. He chuckled. He looked at his hand and was not at all sad about cutting his hand.

A moment later he and his comrades had moved on.

I walked to the Golden Calf.

I found Harry Vernon with a pad and paper, holding his notebook computer. A glance informed me that he was at a translation site, set to “Yiddish – English”

“What we got?” I asked him.

He read his notes. “It says ‘The Answer lies within.’” So we are about to do some Aurelian Bovine Veterinary Surgery.

New horizons every day.

Back to the Beginning

Continue on to Chapter 31