CH15
It is now one month later: (September)
Jim and Martha had learned a lot over the last two months of living on the island. Talking with Andy in Alaska had told them just how worldwide all of this was. Listening to him talk about the people in Japan that he was in contact with on a weekly basis, just like he was with them.
They were learning that only the islands were completely clean since most of them had shut down their air transport into their space early on when the rabies break out first occurred.
From Robert in England they were learning that the Royal Air Force was sending out recon flight missions to see the affect all of this has had on Europe. Robert hadn't as yet heard anything about what they had found, only that they were flying the missions.
Rick had tried one more time to try and get Andy and Robert to spread the word on the invisibility shots. It wasn't a cure, but it was a way to clear the areas that were infected.
Kate and Alexis were out in the fruit trees collecting fruit for later with plans of going over to the nut trees to get some snacks for later. "Alexis honey can we talk?" Kate had something she wanted to talk about. Something that Kate needed to resolve at least in her mind.
"Sure mom, what's up?" Alexis had a guess since this was the first time they had brought Jim and Martha with them this time.
"I wanted to make sure that you know that you don't have to deal with Meredith or Gina ever again if you don't want to. … All you have to do is let me know and I'll handle it." And by handle it, Kate meant take her for a car ride and shoot her.
Alexis almost dropped the fruit that she had just picked and turned to look at Kate. Kate was her mom, why would she want Meredith or Gina anywhere near her?
Meredith did have a habit of just showing up on a whim and upset everyone, while Gina was already out of their lives since her dad had stopped writing. Just now he was writing again, and if dad took them to Black Pawn to be published, Gina would be back in their lives again.
Maybe they could talk her dad into using a different publishing company and avoid Gina.
"Just don't shoot them mom." Alexis decided on humor.
"I make no promises honey. … And I mean it, if you don't want to deal with them let me know and I'll handle it." Kate stopped Alexis and kissed her head.
"Thanks mom." Alexis tossed the fruit she had in hand over he shoulder and hugged Kate.
Kate suddenly felt better. Those two women had done enough damage already and Kate wasn't going to put up with any more.
Kate and Alexis were chopping their fruit into smaller pieces that would go into a piece of Tupperware and then into the refrigerator for later. While they worked Martha was sitting on the sofa reading from her reader. Kate found a downside to people using readers. She didn't know what book they were reading by just looking at the binding, so she didn't know what Martha was reading.
Cheap Romance novel, crime and punishment, serial killer, science fiction, fantasy, military, … what? Kate didn't know enough about Martha to even make a guess. However she had a few months to find out so no reason to push. After all there was nowhere for any of them to go.
"You know what your father is doing?" Kate asks Alexis since she didn't see him or her dad.
"My dad has your dad helping him put gas in three of the jet skis." Alexis explains.
Kate pumped her arms up into the air. "YES!" Followed by suddenly looking embarrassed.
That did however get Martha to stop reading and look at Kate and grin. It warmed her heart that her son had found someone who was so full of life and loved her granddaughter.
She also had the next few months it would appear to get to know her better.
"If we're going to smoke the baby back ribs for tonight, shouldn't they already be in the smoker?" Kate asks.
Alexis looked at her watch. "It's about 3 to 3-1/2 hours, so if we want to eat at say 6:00, they should go in the smoker in about 2-1/2 to 3 hours, however we need to put the wood chips and turn it on half an hour earlier, so we still have time." Alexis tells Kate since it looked like Kate had an ulterior motive for asking.
"GOOD! That gives an hour on the jet skis. … Let's go!" Kate smiles at Alexis and all but jogs for the door leading into the office.
"We're going boating grams, you want to come? You and Jim can join us on Flash." Alexis offers.
Martha hadn't been boating for years. "I believe I will dear, thank you." Martha puts her reader down on the coffee table and catches up to Alexis finding Kate waiting for them just outside.
"I'm glad you decided to come Martha. You should have fun while you are here. I know it's not Manhattan, however even Manhattan isn't the same place you left behind anymore." Kate tells her.
"I can't imagine what I did in that precinct of yours for nine months." Martha was sure it nearly drove her insane.
"So what do you do at home Martha?" Kate wanted her to have fun, not just sit around reading and drinking wine.
"I'm an actress dear, I act in plays and teach students how to act. I even have my own little studio with a few choice students. I have a couple of students right now that I think might turn into something special.
All of my students come from families that don't have much but have a desire to learn and act. I do what I can to make their dreams come true." Martha explains.
"Perhaps you could put on a one woman show. You have a ready made audience that can't go anywhere. There is a small work shop out in the storage building to help build sets, if you need one.
We even have a few spare bedsheets and some floor fans for when it is cool enough to open the door and windows but want a draft.
Think it over Martha." Kate offered.
"Why thank you dear, that is an excellent idea. Perhaps I can borrow one of your laptops to place notes on." Martha perked up suddenly and looked lively and interested.
"Of course Martha, we can even call Espo and have him send anything you might need and download it onto your laptop or maybe even print it out if it isn't too big.
They might still have access to the internet that you can put to use." Kate tells her.
"I'll think about it. Thank you Katherine!" Martha takes Kate's arm in her hand for a moment and smiles.
"We're here to put the jet skis to use while Martha and my father go out in Flash to join us." Kate tells Rick who was just finishing filling the last jet ski.
"Then let's ride!" Rick responds smiling.
Martha was content to let Jim drive until he told her to take his place and literally let go of the wheel and helped Martha into the seat. Martha wasn't so sure about this but did it anyway.
The two of them saw Rick, Kate and Alexis zipping around them since Martha refused to go anywhere near as fast as Kate did or even Jim had for that matter. Still when Martha steered the boat into the dock and watched Kate and Alexis tie her off, Martha was smiling because it had been fun.
Kate met Rick at the start of the dock where Rick was tying the jet skis in place and hugged him. "Thank you, that was fun." And then she kissed him while everyone walked up the dock from the boat.
"I aim to please." Rick smiled back and gave Kate a quick kiss.
"We need to put the ribs in the smoker so we can have dinner." Kate tells Rick remembering her earlier conversation with Alexis.
"I'll go get the wood chips while you rub the ribs." Rick offers.
"Deal." Kate heads for the house just in front of the others.
Rick, Jim and Alexis were outside supervising Rick warming up the smoker while Martha was sitting at the breakfast bar while Kate was mixing up the dry rub to put on the ribs.
"So tell me about yourself dear. Did you always want to be a police man?" Just how did Kate get into this line of work?
"Oh no, my parents were both lawyers and I had decided that I wanted to be one too. Become the first female Supreme Court Justice. I was so sure I was going to make it to. Right after graduating from high school I applied for law school at Stanford.
Even though my teenage years were, … not up to my parents expectations, I still managed to keep my grades up so I was accepted." Kate starts off with.
Martha heard another story in there somewhere but let it pass for now. "Lawyer to police. A fair sized jump even if both could conceivably involve law enforcement." Defend suspected criminals in court or prosecute them.
"There was a life changing moment during my first semester at Stanford." Kate worked at building up the courage to tell Martha. She was engaged to her son, so she knew that Martha deserved to know.
"I was home for Christmas break and my dad and I were supposed to meet mom at a restaurant. She was going to go straight there from work, except she never showed. My dad and I sat there for the first hour, waiting. Finally we ordered something to eat and still sat there waiting after we finished.
Finally we went home with the intent of calling her. Cell phones weren't that popular back then. … Except we found a homicide detective waiting for us at our door. A detective Raglan." A very dirty detective Raglan it had turned out lately.
Martha had an instant pained expression on her face not liking where this story was going.
"Mom had been found, dead in an alley somewhere. Stabbed in the back and left to bleed out. Mom still had her purse, wallet and Jewelry so it wasn't a robbery. The police chalked it up to an act of random gang violence and closed the case.
That answer didn't sit well with me. Someone had killed my mother and if the police weren't going to find out who, then I was. … So I quit Stanford and ending up ultimately in joining the police academy.
I put in my time out on the streets. Rode around in a police cruiser with my partner. Went to my fair share of domestic violence disputes. A few stabbings and gunshot victims. A number of car accidents, even stood out in the middle of an intersection directing traffic. Robberies and other things.
Finally I got my shot at being a homicide detective, junior grade and had a senior partner. Now I was learning all about murders, who commits them, what to look for, how to interview suspects and console the families while asking them questions they don't want to hear.
Captain Montgomery was a big help in those early years." Martha however noticed that her voice had changed when she had mentioned his name and she was grinding her hands into the ribs instead of more gently rubbing them like earlier. Something must have gone wrong.
"And your mother?" Martha asks.
"Oh I started working on my mother's case day one. About a year later I found that it was consuming me and my work was suffering because of it. If I kept it up I'd end up fired and then I'd never solve it.
So I went into therapy and came out a year later with a better understanding of what my mother's case meant to me, and how it was consuming me. I referred to it as going down my own personal rabbit hole, never seeing the light of day every again.
I finally made it to senior detective and was in charge of a team. You've actually talked to them on the phone. Espo and Ryan. … You would be sitting next to them, maybe even sleeping next to them at the precinct even if we hadn't brought you out here this time." Kate had gone back to softly rubbing again Martha noticed.
"And this Captain Montgomery?" Martha knew it was a sore subject by the looks of it, still maybe she could learn something. Something that she could help Katherine with.
"Captain Montgomery decided to retire and actually helped me with my captains' exam and started teaching me how to run an entire precinct, not just the homicide floor that I was already in charge of." Kate explains.
"He sounds like a nice man." Martha didn't understand. Maybe it wasn't him exactly but something that his name reminded her of?
"You would think so wouldn't you." Martha could now hear the venom in her voice. All her years of acting and she had learned people's voices and their mannerisms. When they were happy, when they were sad, or when they were angry, and right now Kate was angry and slowly working her way to furious, and then it was gone. Like the flip of a light switch.
"Let's get these ribs into the smoker shall we, it'll be a nice change from shark and even catfish. Then maybe we can do the pork shoulder next and start having BBQ sandwiches for lunch." Kate smiled and picked up her extremely well rubbed ribs and started walking for the smoker out on the back patio.
That left Martha sitting there watching her walk away. Katherine was a lovely young woman and she had no doubt that her son had noticed that. Plus she was strong and sure of herself and yet still vulnerable.
Alexis had told her of Katherine's walls and how she acted the first few times that they had come here. And it seemed that those walls had all come down and she had let Richard and Alexis into that place no one else was allowed to go.
A beautiful homicide detective with a broken past that had presented her son with a mystery. The perfect woman for him. Richard would likely spend the rest of his life trying to make up for her past so that she didn't keep suffering from it.
And her granddaughter just wanted a grown woman to love and love her back. Be the mom that she had never had. Martha had not trouble seeing that. Her own son had grown up without a father, even if there was a difference between the two.
Richard didn't know who his father was and had never seen him. Alexis however knew who her mother was and that she wasn't any kind of mother at all, and what Meredith had done to that sweet child had always caused her heart pain. It's just that at her age she was no match for Meredith and was forced to sit on the sidelines and pray everything would work out.
Maybe, just maybe all those prayers weren't for nothing. Just what would happen to these two when this stopped happening over and over again?
Martha didn't want to think about that, she had now and it was time to be a part of it. So she grabbed a glass and poured some wine into it and went outside to join the others and get in on the conversation. Time to include herself as a member of this family.
Martha was sitting down with her glass of wine while watching Rick placing the ribs in the smoker.
"Excellent idea Martha! Thank you." Kate went back inside and came back out with a small glass of wine herself.
"You mentioned earlier that the politicians knew this was coming." Jim started off on a sensitive topic. Typically one of the taboos. Talking about politics.
"Well to give them credit we don't know that they KNEW what was coming up the east coast before it got to Miami. They may be only doing what anyone else would have done at the time. Run for their lives." Kate offers.
"Except that they used helicopters likely manned by the military and they ran to a multi-million dollar, maybe state of the art, underground facility 61 miles outside of DC, paid for using public tax dollars. While that same public is left to fend for themselves and likely dying in the millions." Rick points out with an easily noticed venom in his voice.
"You mentioned that you tried to contact the CDC and WHO and likely got nowhere, since it got this far. Did you try to contact any of the senators? Like the one for New York for example." Jim asks, thinking that if they knew it was coming but couldn't do anything about it, they took the 'every man for himself' attitude and screw everyone else.
"I don't have any contacts in the senate and one of our New York senators would be the last person I would tell. Actually I'm kinda hoping that he didn't make it into hiding, and was either infected or vaporized by one of the nukes." Jim and even Martha had no trouble telling that Rick didn't just not like this person, he hated him.
Kate took pity on the looks that Jim and Martha were wearing. "We have a lot of circumstantial evidence that my captain and Senator Bracken are involved with mom's murder." Kate tells them.
That got Martha to start coughing choking on her wine while Jim simply stared at his daughter.
"Roy bought my house out in the Hamptons using cash from a bank account in the Caymans that is owned by one William H. Bracken, which just happens to have an insane amount of money in it.
And I thought Patterson was rich." Rick looks skyward since he did think Patterson was rich. Just that Bracken was even past filthy rich.
"We've tracked Bracken's rise to power that happens to coincide with bad things happening to his competition through the years. … Having little girls run over by a supposed drunk driver that can't be found. A competitor who has racy photos of him with another naked woman who isn't his wife. A woman that no one can ask questions of since she is found dead not soon after the pictures come out." Kate supplies.
"And how does Jo fit into all this?" Jim really wanted to know. He didn't know his daughter was this close to solving it.
"We found that Bracken's first victory happened not long after your wife and her staff were all killed. He won and he used cash that he didn't previously have to do it." Rick tells him.
"So this Bracken killed Jo?" Jim was now wishing like Rick was, that he was infected or vaporized in that nuke, preferably the former since he was hoping that Bracken was still in there somewhere and that he was suffering, big time.
"Technically yes, just not personally. … It is highly unlikely that he would impersonate a drunk person and run down a little girl, crushing both her legs on purpose. That kind of driving takes skill that he likely doesn't have." Rick supplies.
"Or arrange to take pictures of his competitor who was with a naked woman that wasn't his wife and then kill her to prevent her from talking. He may have found the woman and paid her using cash to get herself into bed with no clothes on just long enough for pictures to be taken, only to have not done anything after that, except run. … To her death." Kate points out.
"So he had Jo killed. …. Because of what? Being a dirty senator. Hell they're all dirty and we vote for them anyway. So why Jo?" Jim didn't see it.
"You're forgetting one thing about today's politics. They are all dirty, yes. Just that we don't want to hear it so that it gives us the illusion of voting for someone who isn't worse than the other guy. We want the bad things he has done to remain hidden. Hide them away in his closet.
Your wife was likely gathering evidence that would expose what was in his closet, and once it was out it would be all over the news. News organizations would start their own investigations. The FBI would likely be forced to do one of their own. And the paparazzi would now follow him everywhere he went. Either up close and in his face or from far away. We would see him naked in his bathroom if they could get a picture of it. Think a topless Kate Middleton only worse.
His life would now come under a microscope. His days as a politician would be over. Never make President and likely forced to resign his senate seat, and if they found enough, spend the rest of his life behind bars." Rick offers.
"Or worse dad." Kate offers getting Jim to look at her perplexed at that comment. "We have all this information and we would be responsible for his fall from grace." Kate explains.
Rick and Kate remain silent to let Jim think about it. "Revenge." Martha offers, getting Rick and Kate to nod their heads.
Jim felt his heart fall into his stomach. Wasn't it bad enough that he had taken his wife from him, did he have to take his only daughter too?
"We're still working on that dad, it's not going to happen if we can prevent it." Kate assures him.
"So there is no one we can talk to, to end this?" Jim starts back at the beginning.
"No one I can think of. We've been trying to gain a rapport with Robert and Andy so that they would believe us when we told them, and allow them to build contacts that they could pass the information on to." Rick tells him, guessing that his calls to the CDC, WHO and local TC stations hadn't worked out.
"Dad, … What about Bob?" Alexis asks having forgotten all about him.
"Bob?" Kate questions, not having Rick say anything about a Bob before.
Rick suddenly sat up straight. "Robert Wheldon. … The mayor of New York City." Which got Rick to jump up and go inside in search of his cell/satellite phone, leaving the patio door open.