Chapter 39


April 20, 1998 – Hazzard, the Strate farm

The light tinkling of wind chimes woke Enos after only a few hours of restless sleep. He often woke to the sound of Dragon's head chimes that dripped from the four corners of their house in Goyang-si, and it set him thinking of her. The stimulus wouldn't have mattered. It could have been a bird flying overhead or a pitchfork. He would have thought about Gem perched on his shoulders, tossing her first lost tooth onto the roof while singing the song of the magpie, or the small farm he and Soonie had visited the first month in Korea when they both needed a distraction. All roads led back to her, to them. He desperately wanted to take one of those, preferably the shortest and fastest.

But that was not to be today. Today he had responsibilities here, seven thousand miles of continent and ocean away. Now he wanted to hear her voice again and speak Spanish to her and…

He swallowed the hot, guilty lump at the back of his throat when he looked over at the empty bed. Aaron was already up. Or had he never actually slept?

Yesterday was a disaster, a complete and utter disaster. David Shapiro had not only let down his son, he'd put Aaron's mother in an impossible position, one in which she had to choose between her oath as a police officer and her responsibilities as a mother. Aaron had learned things about his mother and his father in one fell swoop that must have cut him deep. Had that been why David offered so little resistance to Enos taking charge of Aaron while Inez was recovering?

David aside, for he had evaporated from his son's life nine years ago, every good thing Aaron had thought about his mother would now be tainted.

Enos thought back on all the times he should have seen the signs. They were right there, all of them. Had he been so wrapped up in how perfect the three of them seemed to be together that he'd ignored them, or worse, decided just not the see them? Soonie, who had no reservation about telling him the truth, said he was good at that.

When he'd been lonely, they'd filled the void. When he'd been sad, they had cheered him up. When he had needed them, they were there for him. But he left. He'd not been there for Inez or for Aaron when he most needed to be. Drained of energy and preoccupied, he hadn't properly acknowledged the significance of the necklace either. He'd registered it, but he hadn't reacted as he should have, as a father should have.

Those thoughts plagued him as he sat on the edge of the bed and wondered, 'What kind of father will I be to Gem…to Esmé?'

He and Soonie had chosen a name: Esmeralda. They had a 'gem.' Now they would have an 'emerald.'


Enos emerged from the small guest room to the smell of fried country ham and redeye gravy. Aaron sat sullenly at the kitchen table across from Uncle Frank, and Aunt Judy hovered over a jet-black iron skillet cutting slices into hot cornbread.

Judy abandoned the activity when she noticed him and pointed to the chair next to Aaron. "Eggs'll be ready in two shakes."

"I'm not real hungry, Aunt Judy."

"Pshaw. Not likely you've had a good meal since you left Korea. So, you sit."

Enos appreciated the offhand compliment to his wife, even if Judy couldn't bring herself to refer to Korea as his 'home.' The few times he and Soonie had phoned his aunt and uncle over the past six months, he had managed to allay their fears he'd been led astray. According to Daisy, they had taken to his marriage to Soonie better than to the news he had moved to such a wildly exotic place that, in Judy's mind, might as well be Sodom or Gomorrah. He still wasn't sure what Uncle Frank's thoughts on the subject were, but if he was there long enough, there was a certainty he would find out.

So, Enos did as he was told and dutifully took the chair next to Aaron. After breakfast, eaten in anticipatory silence, he asked Aaron to take a walk with him.

"But shouldn't we be trying to find Mom?"

An expression on the boy's face made Enos realize the full extent of the shock he had received, that he was still processing. He saw anger behind those blue-green eyes, righteous and justified anger. A shrink would likely give it some psycho-babble name, but what it was, what it really was...

...his own failure to be there when Aaron faced the betrayal of one parent and possible loss of the other, for the second time in his young life. Any desperation of his own to find Inez would have to be set aside.

"There's lots of law enforcement with better resources out there doin' that. Right now, we need to talk a spell."


The south field that stretched out in front of them, undulating gently over ten acres, had been freshly plowed-in with organics, soon to be planted in corn Uncle Frank grew to feed the pigs. Enos idly remembered that, according to the moon phase, the best time to plant corn in this part of Georgia was between April 24th and April 28th. Maybe they could lend a hand, at least for the next few days. It might take Aaron's mind off what would likely take some time to sort out.

He had slipped back into Hazzard mode, as if the years had been stripped away, leaving his own nineteen-year-old self exposed. He picked up a clump of reddish dirt and crumbled it in his hand.

"Did you know?" Aaron said with a kind of sadness that broke Enos's heart.

"No. At least nothin' you could put a name to. I just knew somethin' more was wrong between them than…than not wantin' to be married to each other anymore."

But Aaron had also known something was making his mother preoccupied, and it weighed him down with his own guilt that he'd not told Uncle E how worried he'd been.

"But she tells you everything."

"Not everything. Not this. It wasn't like that between us back then. Your Mom's a strong woman; she doesn't take help easy. Even after all these years, she never told me. I guess…as the years went by, she thought she was rid of it…that she had everything under control. She said as much in the letter."

He'd re-read the letter again before leaving the guest room, trying to make sense of it.

"She…" Aaron started, his words hoarse and constrained by fear and confusion. "It sounded like she wasn't going to see us again. Why else would she have returned the necklace?"

The necklace.

Enos's hand went to the breast pocket of his shirt, where he'd put it this morning. Perhaps it was like a ring being returned in a divorce. She was distancing herself from him.

"Maybe it was me she didn't plan to see again. Not you. I think she just wanted to explain before you heard about it from some official source or worse, on the news."

"She couldn't have picked up the goddamn phone?!" Aaron picked up a stone and pitched it hard enough to shatter upon impact at a nearby boulder. "Or told me when I was there at the end of March!"

He sank to his knees in the red dirt and broke into anguished sobs. The vehemence with which Aaron hurled his words told Enos the boy's anger was not directed only at his father. He was familiar with how hard it was to say the important things over something as impersonal as a telephone. It was cold and unforgiving and distant. Although the same could be said of a letter, there was a difference. He'd written over five hundred letters, never mailed because he could put on paper all the words he might not be able to say in person or on the phone. And that was on top of the letters he had burned – after Latoya, he wasn't thinking straight. He understood why Inez might have chosen the written word to try and soften the blow before she had to face her son. At least she'd had the guts to send it. How could she have anticipated Lance would intervene before telling her side of the story in person.

"I wish I had the right answers for you. Looks like your Mom found herself between the devil and the deep blue sea and did the best she could to save the one person she loves most in this whole wide world. You should never doubt that she loves you. More than anything."

With his knees in the dirt, Aaron bent his head. He went quiet for a time, his silent contemplation even harder for Enos to bear. It gave him too much time to think about the uncertainties, his own guilt, and how long a road he'd taken to come back from the self-recrimination once before. He didn't want that for Aaron.

"You found Kate," Aaron said finally, looking up at Enos, "You can find Mom."

And there it was. He wanted 'Dad' to perform the same miracle for Inez.

"I didn't do it alone. And if Kate hadn't been where she was and part of an international sting operation, I'd probably still be lookin'." He planted his own knees in the Georgia clay next to Aaron and said, "It doesn't mean I'll ever stop tryin'. There's always room for hope."

To his core, he believed that until presented with hard evidence to the contrary, hope can be your salvation. He also knew that false hope can destroy you.

Aaron fell into the arms of the only father he had known for so many years, heaving sobs into his chest. By the time Aaron cried himself out, Uncle Frank had appeared at the clearing at the end of the footpath that led back to the house.

"You left yer newfangled phone on the kitchen table." He held up Enos's mobile phone. "That lieutenant Adams friend of yers is on the line. Wants to speak at you."


When Turk pulled up to the Strate house in the rental car, he found Enos and Aaron both waiting for him.

Standing next to the passenger door, Turk handed Enos the fax he'd received from Thompson earlier that morning. Then, gesturing with his head to Aaron, who was already in the back seat, said, "You sure this is a good idea?"

Enos had gone back and forth with himself over whether or not to take Aaron along. On the one hand, he wanted to protect him from intrusive questions that would only make the situation worse, and on the other hand, he didn't want to keep any more from him. Even though the wound might still be raw, Aaron wasn't a child anymore.

"Boy's got a right to be involved."

"Okay. You know him better than anyone."

After reading the fax, which was short but not so sweet, Enos sank into the front passenger seat.

Thompson had hand-scrawled a note that announced:

David Shapiro picked up for questioning by the FBI early this morning while trying to flee West Virginia. His arrest is imminent – 18 to 24 hours.

Turk put the car in drive and murmured, "And the hits just keep on coming." 40

April 20, 1998 – Hazzard, the Duke farm

Aaron was painfully silent those few miles between the Strate and the Duke farms. His father had done something very wrong. That it had put his mother in an ethical quagmire was a shadowy abstract. The news that David would be arrested by the FBI within the next 24 hours made it concrete. The actuality was like a hard punch in the solar plexus.

When they arrived at the farm, Turk parked in front of the house, exited the car, and went inside to find Daisy, giving Enos and Aaron a few more minutes alone to collect themselves before facing the rest of the day.

Standing on the front porch, Enos was as apprehensive as Aaron, a young man with expectations that 'Dad' would never betray him or his mother the way his father had - both fortifying and frightening for Enos.

Once set on the path, there was no turning back for either of them.


With a sympathetic smile, Daisy opened the screen door to let them into the parlor where Turk stood speaking in low tones with Luke and Bo.

"Aaron, this is Daisy, Luke, and Bo Duke," Enos said as Luke, with a solemn expression, put out his hand to Aaron. Bo followed suit.

With only Enos and Turk as their common link, Aaron was as much a stranger to them as they were to him. Under other circumstances, remedying that would not have been a problem for any of the Dukes or Aaron. Today, they were all hard-pressed to know the right thing to say.

All the while, Enos had one eye on Annie. As if anchoring herself to the table, she sat with her hands tightly knitted, suppressing the urge to leap over the obstacle and bombard him with questions about Katie.

"Excuse me, y'all, but I think I should talk to Mignon first. Aaron, you mind stayin' here with Turk for a little while?"

"No, Sir."

Aaron had gone stoic again. Enos saw that same look of forbearance on Soonie when he'd left for Turkey but had no time to dwell on it.

As Enos approached the table, Annie swallowed hard and stood up a little faster than she intended.

"I hardly know how I'm ever going to be able to thank you." Her words came with tears and sniffles that caused Bo to move toward her, but Luke grabbed him by the arm.

"All I did was find her, Mignon. I'm sorry it took me so long."

The resultant hugging of Kate's rescuer went on for what seemed to Bo an unacceptably long time, yet Luke still held him back and in a low tone, said, "Let her be, Bo, till she's ready to let go."

Then, he herded Bo out onto the front porch, encouraging Daisy, Turk, and Aaron to follow him.

And Annie did let Enos go. With the ice broken, she was able to pelt him with question after question about her sister's health, her mental and emotional state, where she was right now, and when it might be possible to see her…it went on and on until she finally exhausted both of them. The questions and answers ceased only when she juxtaposed her happiness with what had brought Enos and Kate to Atlanta instead of Los Angeles.

"Mignon–" Enos said softly.

"Please, call me Annie."

"Annie," Enos corrected, "Kate wants to see you as much as you want to see her. Maybe more. But…she needs some time." He hesitated. "And she's helping with the investigations."

"I know. But Katie was in that awful place for so long."

He wanted to tell Annie that Kate counted herself as fortunate…lucky not to have suffered worse, been there longer, or for the rest of what for most of the women was a short life…but that would only reinforce her anguish about what Kate had gone through. Better that only he and Kate carried those images. He was ruminating on things that can never be unseen when Sophie reached the last step of the stairs.

Annie wiped her face with her palms and, pulling Enos over to the staircase, said, "This is Luke's wife, Sophie."

"I'm ever so pleased to meet you in person, Sophie. My wife wanted me to tell you that she's lookin' forward to meetin' you. All of you," he smiled toward Annie, then turned back to Sophie. "When my contract is up, and we come back to the States, we'd like to bring our girls to Hazzard for a visit. Eun-kyung, we call her Gem, is the same age as Emily."

"I know. Em and Caleb are at school today. They'll be sorry they missed you. Unless you're going to be here through the afternoon."

Turk had told him one of the administrative staff at their school was a former Marine buddy of Luke's and that he was keeping a close eye on the kids.

"I guess it depends on how the day plays out." He consulted his watch. "If y'all will excuse me, I think Bo and Luke have some things they need to get off their chests before Sheriff Rosco gets here."


He'd been right. The reception from Bo and Luke was less than warm, and he wouldn't have wanted to repeat that half-hour again for love or money; unless it was in exchange for Soonie's love, in which case he'd have endured Bo and Luke's vexations, then gladly walked through hellfire over brimstone.

By the time Rosco arrived around ten that morning, Enos was just ending a phone call. Turk and Aaron anxiously awaited a recap.

"Where are you headed next?" Enos asked into the phone and listened for the answer.

"Just keep in touch…and Tommy…Be careful. And mind what I said about Elektra."

Rosco waited patiently, if not calmly, with Daisy in the corner of the room until he hung up.

Turk looked askew at Enos. "Elektra's not with him…is she?"

"He didn't want to leave her in L.A. We can talk about that later."

Rosco murmured out of the side of his mouth to Daisy, "Who's Elektra?"

"His girlfriend."

Rosco cupped his hand over Daisy's ear and whispered, "Enos is married. He can't have a girlfriend."

"She's Detective Thompson's girlfriend," Daisy said, reproachfully.

"Ohhhhh." Rosco still hadn't a clue but was relieved anyway. Ever since that boy was thirteen, he'd had to fight the women off with a stick. Rosco had been witness to it on more than a few occasions.

"He's following Lance's trail?" Aaron asked, oblivious to either Daisy or the Sheriff.

"Yep," Enos said in typical Thompson style. "He's in Oklahoma, headed for Missouri."

"If Lance is in Missouri, isn't that where we should be?"

"Tommy's just followin' up leads, Aaron, trying to get ahead of Lance. I'm goin' with Turk on this one. Sure as the sun rises, he'll bring your Mom to us."

Aaron looked to Turk for assurance. "What makes you so sure Lance is headed here? It doesn't follow any kind of logic. Wouldn't he go in the opposite direction, someplace no one would expect him to go?"


Intermezzo

November 25, 2013 - Hazzard

"I've been wondering the same thing," Ty said, taking another sip of his coffee. "If I was on the run, I'd head to Canada or Mexico, not to the one place where everybody and his brother were extremely motivated to find me, or worse."

"That woulda' been the smart thing to do alright. Just 'cause a man's intelligent, don't make him smart. Afterwards, folks had lots of theories. The armchair detectives conjured up stuff like devil worship and suicide by cop." Rosco stopped to snicker. Stupidest thing he ever heard.

"FBI profilers," he continued, "thought it was probably revenge for a brother he never got to know. Hindsight bein' twenty-twenty, we didn't know that Darcy Kincaid was Joseph Lance's twin brother. That didn't come out till later. GBI figured he was tryin' to get back in Niki Lazzaro's good graces. Or Lazzaro was usin' him to get back at Detective De Pina."

Ty mused, "Niki Lazzaro apparently had a reputation for serving his revenge cold."

"When all the shoutin' was over, she's the one brought his whole operation down around his ankles. 'Spose we'll never really know for sure since neither of them is talkin.' Maybe they just thought they was smarter than all us extremely motivated hillbillys."

"And what do you think?" Ty asked, amused. "I mean, what is your official working theory?"

"Me? I think Lance's cornbread wasn't all the way done in the middle an' he had one of them psychotic breaks. Simple as that. Darcy Kincaid was a horse's patoot, 'specially where women were concerned, and so was Joe Lance. Bad blood. And that's a fact."

Ty looked more confused than thoughtful and asked, "So how did it end up playing out in Middle of Nowhere, Georgia?"

"When the GBI got to Hazzard, those news vultures put two and two together and come up with five. Things slid downhill fast after that." Rosco's voice, as well as his thoughts, trailed off to a place far away. "They'd found out about how close Enos and Inez were by then. It was like booger sugar to them on top of all the hoopla over him and Kate Broussard a few months before. No matter how the LAPD tried to keep details of their investigation from leakin' outta the jug, it was too big, too many agencies involved. Two LAPD cops on the run made for some juicy headlines. Enos and Aaron got caught in the middle."

Rosco sneezed into his handkerchief and swiped it across his nose.

Ty cleared his throat. "I feel as if I need to apologize for the sins of my peers, but most of them try to get it right."

"Rude and hurtful is what they were," Sarah Jane couldn't help interjecting as she came into the dining room to reset the table's centerpiece. "Never givin' a body any peace."

Ty heard only faintly the last part, which she said quietly while passing close to him on her way to the kitchen, "If you ask me, they were the cause of how things happened the way they did."

"Like I said, she's guardin' the henhouse," Rosco reminded him.

Ty shrank a little under the renewed scrutiny Sarah Jane had brandished.

"Now, where was I?" Rosco pondered.

"You were about to tell me what was happening with Detective De Pina while all the media hype was going on."

"Oh, yeah. Well, Lance was holdin' Inez in one of them no-tell motels in Alabama – didn't know that either till after – kept her drugged most of the time – too much of a fighter for him to keep her hogtied otherwise. Guess she tried to escape several times, but he caught her. Later, after…the Alabama State Police found the plane they left Las Vegas in at a private airstrip out in Jackson County – the pilot was dead."

"Beechcraft King Air 90 if I remember correctly," Ty said, and then responding to the question teetering on the tip of Rosco's lips, explained, "Workhorse of twin turboprops. They fly transplant teams to and from surgeries. I did a piece on them a few years back."

"Uh-huh. Anyhoo, there was a nationwide manhunt out for Lance…and Inez. Lots of reports comin' in from all over the country, not many of um worth followin' up. Tommy, that's Gordon Thompson, he's a Captain now you know…By the time he caught up to where the plane refueled, they were long gone, and he was headed our way."


References:

(40) "And the hits just keep on coming." is a quote from A Few Good Men, as well as the name of a 1972 song by Michael Nesmith (formerly of The Monkees). It is attributed to DJs who used it to transition between 'hit' songs on the radio.