“We can for a moment or two,” Alexei said. “But my ride is already on its way to pick me up. I’m supposed to meet him in front of the school in minutes.”
“Okay then, I’ll be quick,” Jack said. “Yesterday I mentioned I was going to be autopsying Ethan Jameson this morning.”
“I remember,” Alexei said, feeling a minor jolt. Although he was thankful the conversation was so far not about Amsterdam or the Dutch language, he’d not expected it to be about Ethan Jameson. “How did the autopsy go? Were you able to learn how he managed to get himself killed?”
“Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned,” Jack said. “Right before the autopsy was about to begin, it was discovered that his body had gone missing. Had you or your compatriots heard anything about this disappearance?”
“Missing!” Alexei said, feigning shock. “No! We’ve heard nothing of the kind, and we did meet with JD this afternoon. Does he know?”
“Yes, JD definitely knows,” Jack said.
“Then I’m surprised he didn’t tell us,” Alexei said. “We met with him about making some final lecture plans before we leave, so he had plenty of opportunity. That’s very strange. How could something like that happen in a small town like this? I can imagine itoccurring in a large hospital like my own with bodies coming and going, but not in a small town. That’s freakish.”
“That’s our feeling as well,” Jack said. “It’s a confusing situation, particularly for Dr. Bob, who understandably feels responsible. I’m intent on finding out what the hell could have happened.”
“Well, I hope the body turns up,” Alexei said, motioning as if checking his watch. “I’m sorry, but I need to be on my way. My commander holds dinner for me.”
“Of course,” Jack said. “One other question, but first a bit of background. Last night during a barbecue dinner the police chief happened to mention that during his interview with Janet Huber, he’d been told that the morning of Ethan Jameson’s death he’d been very angry at your commander.”
“I’m not surprised,” Alexei said, feeling the need to say something since Jack had paused, causing him to feel progressively anxious about the upcoming question, fearing his answer might be self-incriminating because he was the one who decided to kill Ethan.
“Chief Hargrove went on to say that the reason Ethan Jameson was angry was because your commander wasn’t attending the Diehard Patriots’ activities. Instead, he was spending progressively more and more time in a home brewery. Is that true in your estimation?”
“Absolutely!” Alexei blurted out. “It’s true. Ethan had even expressed his anger to me about the same issues on several occasions, which I passed on to the commander, but the commander chose to ignore it.” Inwardly Alexei relaxed a degree since the question had been relatively easy to answer, although it was worrisome that Jack was in any way associating Ethan’s death with them. At the same time, he complimented himself for having decided to buy afermenter with JD’s help through JD’s parents’ hardware store rather than a more expensive bioreactor from the scientific supply company in Albany. In so doing it had inadvertently created the unexpected additional benefit of JD raising the brewery idea. He shuddered to think of what might have happened had he bought a bioreactor, and JD had somehow learned of it.
Jack stared at him for a couple of beats. He then took in a deep breath and let it out slowly before shaking his head. “I’m sorry, but it all seems rather bizarre to me. For your commander to offer to help the Diehard Patriots and come all this way across the Atlantic Ocean and be in a particularly gorgeous mountain environment in the middle of the summer and yet want to spend time indoors making beer, especially when there are so many terrific commercial craft beers available, makes no sense.”
“It makes no sense to me, either,” Alexei said with an agreeable nod. “And to be honest, just between us, it has irritated me as well. With the commander and his second in command occupied with his beer-making passion, it’s created significantly more of a burden for me and my partner. Dealing with the ridiculous Diehard Patriots has ended up falling on the two of us alone, and let me tell you, keeping these amateurs and ourselves reasonably safe has been one hell of a struggle.”
“I can imagine,” Jack said, “but why then do you and your partner also remain so cloistered in the Bennet Estate? Why don’t at least you two take advantage of what this area has to offer?”
“That’s a fair question,” Alexei agreed. “First of all, the Diehard Patriot maneuvers are all held at night, so on those occasions my partner and I sleep during the day. Second, we stay on the Bennet Estate’s grounds specifically because the commander directly orders us to do so. He knows this is a small, isolated town with ananti-immigrant and anti-foreign orientation, and he’s committed for us to not be intrusive. Giving in to my pleading and allowing me to play basketball is his only concession. But it’s also true that Bennet Estate is like being at a luxury spa, so staying there is hardly an imposition.”
“Okay, fair enough,” Jack said with a nod and a broad smile. “Since I’m staying at a remarkably similar property on the very same lake, I can mostly agree. If your quarters are like ours, it is a luxury spa, and particularly yours with its diving board.” Jack laughed outright. “To be honest,” he added, “I’m jealous of your diving board. When I was a teenager, a springboard was a central fixture of my summertime.”
Alexei managed a nervous chuckle. “The diving board is a particularly nice amenity that I have enjoyed.” In the back of his mind, he was thinking more about how handy it had been helping to dispose of Ethan Jameson’s corpse.
“I’m sure I would do the same,” Jack said. “But before you go, let me pay you and your comrades a compliment. Just prior to coming here for basketball, I stopped in to see the police chief, Bill Hargrove. You should know that he specifically compliments you folks for what you have managed to do with the Diehard Patriots. Although their nighttime activities have increased during your stay, he pointed out that there’s been no accidents and particularly no fatalities, and he gives full credit for this to you and your compatriots.”
“Thank you for telling me,” Alexei said as he started to back away. “I’ll pass that on to the others, particularly the commander. When we originally arrived, we were shocked at exactly how ragtag they were and how carelessly they handled their weapons.”
“If we play over the weekend, I hope to see you again,” Jack called out as he waved goodbye.
Alexei waved back but quickly turned and beat a hasty retreat out of the park. He was enormously relieved that he’d not been dragged into a conversation about Amsterdam, or Holland in general, or the Dutch language. At the same time the conversation had disturbed him.
As he normally did when leaving, he rapidly skirted the Margery Malone school and emerged onto Main Street. He was relieved to see Dmitry already waiting for him, and he wasted no time climbing into the truck’s cab.
“Well, what’s the story?” Dmitry questioned even before he finished backing out of the parking spot.
“It’s not good,” Alexei admitted. As Dmitry accelerated, Alexei gave him an abbreviated version of what he learned from both JD and the New York City forensic pathologist. Dmitry audibly groaned when Alexei finished.
Serving as yet another repeat of the previous day’s events, when they got back to the Bennet Estate, Alexei made the same beeline into the kitchen, where Viktor and Nikolai were again pretending to be gourmet chefs. On this occasion they were making Russian dumplings called pelmeni with Viktor creating the stuffing while Nikolai was producing the dough. The moment Alexei appeared, they put aside what they were doing, and all four took bar seats at the island.
“I can sense you are not bringing us good news,” Viktor said with a serious expression. He entwined his fingers and leaned forward on his forearms, staring directly across the granite expanse at Alexei.
In contrast to how he’d summarized what he learned for Dmitry, Alexei provided a word-for-word recounting of his interaction with JD. When he’d finished, he added that it was his sense that althoughhe didn’t know whether JD knew they were Russian, he was certain JD knew that their passports were bogus.
“I’m not surprised,” Viktor said, using a particularly serious tone. “This is not good news. It means that we’re totally at the mercy of an obviously unstable individual. With that said, I ask you again, when can we expect a decent harvest of the theta prion so we’ll know when we can flee this godforsaken town?”
