Chapter 29
Los Angeles, California – December 25, 1997
Turk Adams turned the key in the back door to his house and lingered on the stoop for more than a few seconds. He was coming home to an empty house. He had been coming home to an empty house for nearly two weeks since Shawnee moved out.
The service weapon went into the nightstand drawer. The keys and badge landed on the top of the nightstand with a thud, and he collapsed rather than sat down on the bed. It had been a long month of meticulous planning. He would only have one day off, then it would be back to the task force and the raid scheduled for Friday. If one thing went wrong, if there was any slip, they would lose the advantage of surprise and any link they could make between the drug chain and the human trafficking chain in Southern California.
It was three in the morning on Christmas day, but he grabbed a beer from the fridge anyway. As much satisfaction as he got from bringing in the big fish, especially since it had recently become personal, he still missed the streets and the hands-on action. He had begun to believe that the danger and tension that went with his undercover work was the part of his life Shawnee had found most interesting about him. When his life became more about the big picture, there wasn't much left they could call a relationship.
He reached for the phone and picked up the receiver, punching in the 706 area code, then having second thoughts, he remembered how early it would be in Hazzard. He cut off the call before putting in the rest of the number and, instead, dialed Enos's number in South Korea.
Santa Monica, California – December 25, 1997 (Pacific Time)
At 4:36 am, Gordon Thompson awoke alone in Elektra's bed. She leaned over the back of the chair she was sitting in, wearing his shirt over some skimpy night shorts. The wall at which she was staring had, the night before, been the host to a single gallery wrapped canvas of pure black that declared in white letters Dare to think!. Covered with ten or twelve sticky notes, it now had all the appearance of a murder wall.
Thompson pulled himself to a sitting position on the bed. He was supposed to be on duty, along with Angela Kim, for Christmas Day at 7:00 am. He and Kim had taken the twelve-hour Christmas Day shift for the other Detectives with families. Angie had plans for the three day weekend she would gain from working on Christmas Day.
At the time he'd agreed, Thompson simply had nothing better to occupy his time on Christmas Day, and he wanted to do some more digging while De Pina wasn't around to wonder what he was up to.
Now, for the first time in a long while, Gordon Thompson had something, someone, that interested him more than work. He began to study the wall, as well as the other electrifying view.
Elektra had established a few apparent connections between the yellow sticky notes with red string and push pins, making Thompson wonder how her landlord would feel about his wall being used for such a purpose. He reached down and picked up sheets of college-ruled notebook paper with mathematical equations and graphs that had been scattered on the side of the bed she had vacated.
"You're a very strange girl," he said, smiling and thinking, 'Hot - but strange.'
"Thanks," she said, leaning her chin on her arms crossed over the back of the chair, still intensely studying the wall. "I wouldn't want to be ordinary."
"Well, no worries there."
The top left section of the wall was dedicated to the trafficking raid on October 29, including one note with his name on it. The area directly below that was filled with whatever he had told her about Radmila Kozlova's murder in Griffith Park and a section immediately to the right with facts she knew about Strate's attack. There were even sticky notes in between that read Inez De Pina and Gordon Thompson.
The top middle section was dominated by Kate Broussard, and directly below that and on the same plane as Strate and the Griffith Park murder were three sticky notes that read EASTERN EUROPE on the left, TAIWAN in the middle, and WESTERN ASIA on the right.
The top right section was for Mollaret, a.k.a. Hebert. Under Mollaret, there were notes about the video store burglaries and finally ended at the bottom right with one lone sticker that read LAZZARO/ATLANTA.
She had tied a string from Strate to the raid, Strate to Griffith Park, and to De Pina, he assumed, because they both investigated the murder. Although Strate investigated it in truth, De Pina only oversaw the investigation in the beginning until it was turned over to Rodriguez's unit. When he took the file back, she wasn't involved. There was a string that also tied Strate directly to Kate and Mollaret/Hebert. He got why she was concerned about the consistency factor. Strate had the most connections. In fact, to all the events or players, except Lazzaro. Niki "The Lizard" Lazzaro's only connection, currently, was to Mollaret/Hebert through the VHS tape Elektra had discovered.
The connections directly to and from Kate Broussard were limited to Strate, Mollaret/Hebert, and the note that read TAIWAN. The Black Sea Globe Freight ship off-loaded cargo in Taiwan before making its way through the Sea of Mamara to Istanbul's Black Sea port. From there, the path of the freighter is less defined. It was apparently rerouted several times due to weather and did not enter the Black Sea through the Dardanelles Strait on its original schedule. The FBI tried to obtain the actual logs, but the company was not US-based. Therefore, not subject to FBI scrutiny.
Thompson studied the connections Elektra had made between Strate, Kate Broussard, and Mollaret that had already been made before the case of Strate's attack and Kate Broussard's disappearance had been broken up between different jurisdictions – the FBI, the GBI, and LAPD Major Crimes. She had added two or three elements. There was a question mark and the words WEAK CONSISTENCY beside Strate's attack.
"So, you agree with me? Strate's attack doesn't fit the model."
"I do – and I don't. It fits, but it doesn't fit - considering variables, coincidence, and factors not yet taken into account, identified, or classified – the different levels of connection. Enos is the only one that wasn't critically, or fatally, injured or has disappeared – that's the variable. You said yourself, if it was a criminal organization like a cartel, or even just Mollaret slash Hebert, we'd be putting flowers on a grave. The attack on Enos is the only event that doesn't completely fit the pattern...But the connections are so strong in favor of the model that I can't explain why he's still alive and well."
"And these?" He asked, holding out the wad of papers toward her.
"Statistical analysis - formulas for checking bias versus consistency. That," she said, pointing to one of the graphs, "is a Consistency Estimator. These are probability factors." Again, she pointed to a set of formulas on the graph. "...Um, mathematically eliminating the least likely–"
"Trying to dumb it down for me?"
"That's not what I was trying to do at all."
"It's okay. I took some logic courses that included statistical analysis in college. And they teach something similar in 'cop school' - but nothing like this. So, please, dumb it down. I won't be offended. But I should warn you, there might be a stupid question or two...or three."
"The only stupid question is the one that you should have asked and didn't."
Thompson slid in behind her, rested his chin on her shoulder, and put his arms around her waist. Then, he noticed a pile of red sticky notes stuck to the chair back.
"Okay, then. Number one stupid question...What are these?" he asked, flipping one of the bright neon-red notes with his finger.
"Wild cards."
December 25, 1997 – Hazzard, the Duke farm
Around noon, after calls and Christmas wishes from Coy and Vance had come and gone, and presents had all been opened, Bo and Luke offered to get Christmas dinner on the table. After all, Daisy, Sophie, and Annie had prepared the meal – Bo said it was the least they could do. He was trying hard to be the man he wanted Annie to see.
When dinner was over, Caleb jumped up from the table and started for the parlor when Sophie stopped him. "Caleb, excuse yourself please."
"But Mom, I want to practice with my new bow."
She intensified her gaze on the boy. "It's a small thing, Caleb. You could have done it twice in the time it takes to argue about it."
"Okay, 'scuse me."
"'Scuse me, Ma'am," Luke instructed.
"Yes, ma'am, 'scuse me," Caleb said. "Now can I go?"
Luke smiled. "Get your bow, and me and Bo'll show you how to use it."
Caleb beamed. "Yes, sir!" He high tailed it for the parlor where he had left the spiffy new compound bow Luke and Sophie had given him for Christmas, after much discussion and debate with Sophie about his age and safety.
Luke kissed Sophie and said, "We'll teach him the safe way to use it, won't we Bo?" The last was a reminder to his cousin that dynamite was for boulders and not to be taped to arrow shafts to blow up outhouses from now on.
"Promise, Sophie," Bo said, crossing his heart. He bent over Annie and kissed her on the forehead. "Wanna' come?"
"I need to help clear the table," she said.
"You go ahead, Annie," Sophie said, "Keep them on the straight and narrow."
Daisy laughed and agreed.
Once the four of them were out of the house, Sophie and Daisy started clearing what was left of Christmas dinner from the table.
"You should take the rest of that pie to Emma, Daisy," Jesse said, "What's left of the ham can go in the freezer for New Years Day. To go with the cornbread, black-eyed peas, and cabbage."
Daisy smiled. "Just like always, Uncle Jesse." She kissed him on the cheek. "Now you get out of our way and go out on the front porch and watch the kids. And I'm not just talking about Caleb."
"I think I'll do that, sweet girl. Wonder what Enos will have for New Year supper this year?"
"I think, in Korea, they celebrate a different New Year – based on the lunar calendar - later in January," Annie said. "I doubt they'll have cornbread and black-eyed peas, but I'm sure there will be kimchi on the table. So, at least they'll have the cabbage."
He smiled, thinking of Enos Strate sitting cross-legged on the floor and eating fermented cabbage with chopsticks. Just seemed too much like something out of one of Enos's favorite comic books.
Walking through the parlor, he spotted Emily playing with her Pet Doctor Barbie® and stooped down to look at the doll. "She's a pretty thing, that's for sure."
"She's a docter for aminals. That's what I'm gonna' be."
"So I hear, darlin.'" He ruffled her hair and struggled to get up, using the cushioned chair to steady himself.
"You okay Unca Jesse?"
"I'm just dandy, Emmy. Don't you worry your little head about me and practice at bein' that 'aminal' doctor."
"Unca Jesse, you think Daddy Luke will take me on the tractor after he shows Caleb how to use that bow thingy?"
"I think if you asked Daddy Luke to pull down the moon for you, he'd try to do it," he said and winked at her.
Moving slowly out onto the porch, he lowered himself gingerly into the swing to watch Luke show Caleb how to pull the bowstring while Annie was content to sit on the steps to watch. They heard the phone ring and Daisy talking to someone in California.
"Must be Turk Adams again," Jesse said to Annie. "He's called a few times in the past couple of weeks to check up on things."
Caleb was getting frustrated right off the bat, struggling to pull back the bowstring enough to set the arrow.
Bo said, "You know, when Uncle Jesse over there," he pointed at the front porch, "first taught us to use a bow, we didn't have these fancy things. Took us a while to get used to um too – and we were all grown up. Here, let me loosen the tension just a little. I swear I think they tighten the tension on these just to make people hot and bothered."
Once the tension was adjusted, it was much easier for Caleb to pull back the string.
"But that's for babies."
"Don't' you worry, Caleb," Luke said, "Once you get the feel of it, we'll start tightening up the string a little at a time. Pretty soon, you'll be able to hit a target dead center at full tension from thirty yards. Bullseyes that is, nothin' living." Luke added the last just in case Sophie was listening in. Her acquiescence to giving Caleb the bow was with the promise that it be made clear it wasn't for hunting, only for target practice.
Jesse sat in the swing and imagined all the times that Bo, Luke, Coy, Vance, and Daisy, as well as Enos, were playing on the same earth that Luke was now teaching his stepson. So much had changed, just in the past year.
They had all grown up to be good people: friends when one was needed, protectors when the family was threatened, sticking together through all the adversity that came their way. He had no doubt that whatever new challenges lay ahead for them, they would all weather it like Dukes – which he also credited mostly to Lavinia.
She had been much on his mind of late. He was tired. Thinking of her usually picked up his spirits and his energy. Although she had always lingered in the smell of the freshly laundered sheets and pies baking in the oven, she had somehow re-entered the house in other ways in the last few weeks. He could feel her everywhere. The image of Lavinia's face when she found out Daisy and Enos had dyed her best tablecloth black suddenly popped into his head. The fact that she had taken it out the next Halloween and used it on the apple-bobbing table was a testament to how she could craft a silk purse from a sow's ear and make a positive out of any situation. 31
He could see her next to Daisy and Sophie in the kitchen, quietly guiding their hands while they made her special cookies for the Christmas bake sale – next to Bo as he navigated the uncharted waters of real, honest-to-goodness love - next to Luke, who was trying his best to be a good husband and father. He believed she was watching over Coy and Vance, and Enos's new family – so far away.
A new century was just around the corner, and new life was coming into the world. While the sounds of life surrounded him, he dozed off with a tune thrumming in his head, thinking of Lavinia. Like a hymn on Sunday, she filled his thoughts. 32
She wasn't far, just close by,
through an open door,
work all done,
care laid by,
never fear
no more...
Acknowledgments:
(30) Daisy and Enos dying Aunt Lavinia's tablecloth black is a story element of The Story of Us, by WENN9366. I like the background she gave Daisy and Enos as children growing up in Hazzard and have adopted it, for the most part for reference. I would write my own, but don't think I could do a better job of it!
References:
(31) Dvorak's Symphony 9. Largo theme was adapted in the spiritual-like song "Goin' Home" (often mistakenly considered a folk song or traditional spiritual) by Dvorak's pupil William Arms Fisher, who wrote the lyrics in 1922 - Wikipedia