“Wendy,
I need to talk to
Alex
too. I thought he
would
be
here.”
“He
works
late a lot. But you can talk to him at Garrison of Gaia.
Fourteenth,
near T Street. Hope you
find
the jerk who al most killed
Cassandra.”
She
slammed the
door.
Lacey
had been dismissed.
Again.
The Garrison of Gaia, or GOG, with its mission to
honor,
pro tect, and die for Mother Earth,
was
headquartered in the District
in
a
converted
garage
on
upper
Fourteenth
Street
near
T
Street
Northwest. The taxi dropped
Lacey
in front of the
building.
It had been painted green and emblazoned with the
firered
Gar rison of Gaia logo. She
was
really racking up cab
fare
for
The
Eye
,
she thought, running around the city without a
car.
Lacey
took stock of her surroundings. The
Shaw
neighbor hood
was
only a
few
blocks
away,
she realized, with the
tiny
Shiloh Mount Zion Church and its looted
Nativity
scene. The upper
Fourteenth
Street neighborhood had once been a
funky
haven
for small independent theatres,
downattheheels
bars,
quirky
shops, and
longvacant
warehouses,
but
now
it
was
on the same
aggressive
fast
track to
gentrification
as the rest of the
city.
Stepping through the front
door,
Lacey
noticed
everything
looked
recycled,
the furniture, the carpets, the battered cubicle
dividers.
If Garrison of Gaia
was
renting this property cheap and
didn’t
own
the
building,
she
wondered
when
they
would
face
eviction.
Soon,
she thought. A tangle of plants fought for sun in
windows
that once had been service bays. The stomach turning aroma of
burnt
coffee
filled
the
air.
A young man and a younger
woman
sat on the floor in the reception area
next
to a battered
coffee
table
overflowing
with flyers.
They
were
stuff
ing
envelopes.
Plastic
bins
of
stuffed
envelopes
were
piled
around them on the
floor.
Both wore jeans, Garrison of
Gaia
Tshirts
over
turtlenecks,
and
fingerless
gloves.
They
gazed
up
at her with mild
curiosity.
“I’m looking for Alex
Markham,”
Lacey said. The
office
was
as cold as the house
she’d
just left.
These
people
don’t
be
lieve
in heat,
she realized.
Earth:
Love
It or
Leave It.
“Alex!”
The
woman
yelled
over
her
shoulder.
“Someone to see
you.”
She returned to her task of
stuffing
envelopes
with flyers. The phone rang and the man reached one arm up to the
reception
desk
behind
him
to
answer
it
with
a
practiced
formula.
“Garrison of Gaia. Mother Earth:
Love
it or
leave
it!
How
can
you
help?”
Lacey
was
distracted from the rest of this
conversation
as
Alex
Markham
emerged
from a dim
hallway.
He
wore
casual slacks and a blue
work
shirt with the
sleeves
rolled up. Another in his collection of Jerry Garcia ties hung loosely at his throat. Apparently he
was
used to
working
in this chilly
building,
or the cold
didn’t
bother him. He combed his hair back with his
fingers
and
looked
as if he were trying to remember who she
was.
“Lacey
Smithsonian,”
she said.
“You
remember.
From
The
Eye
Street
Observer
.
We
met at the
hospital.”
“Of course,
Lacey.
Wendy
rang me and said you were on your
way.
I
was
just thinking I had seen you
somewhere
else re
cently.
Besides at the hospital
today.
Were
you at the
Folger
Consort the other night?”
“Yes,
I
was.”
She
didn’t
remember him,
but
then
Vic
and his parents had consumed most of her attention. Markham did look like the type who helped fill the theatre that night, with
his
neatly
trimmed
beard
and
tweedy
look.
The
other
two
had
stopped
stuffing envelopes
and were listening in.
“I’m a big
fan
of early
music.”
Markham indicated that he and
Lacey
should
move
out of the reception area.
“We
have
a huge mailing going out soon. Come on back to my
office
where we can
talk.”
They
passed a
large
conference room and a small kitchen aromatic with the ruined
brew.
Markham’s
small
windowless
office
was
the last one,
next
to the restroom. Hardly the luxury
she
associated
with
being
a
D.C.
legal
mouthpiece,
even
at
a
nonprofit.
“Is this about Cassie?” He
moved
a chair from the
hallway
into his
crowded
office.
In addition to his desk and
ergonomic
chair,
there were a couple of other chairs full of red
law
books, open to specific pages. Briefs were stacked on the desk
and
piled high on a small marble
coffee
table and battered
filing
cabinets. None of the furniture matched.
“Just a
few
questions.”
This
was
worse
than Mac
Jones’s
of
fice,
Lacey
thought. Minus the doughnuts.
“Excuse the
mess.”
He smiled as if he could read her mind. “I really do
know
where
everything
is, I
promise.”
Markham seemed to
have
a slight sense of
humor,
the
first
one she had sensed in
Cassandra’s
crowd.
She smiled.
“I’m sure you
do.”
He
picked
up something from the desk and flashed it at her: a CD by the
Folger
Consort. He put it in an ancient boom box and turned it on
softly.
“It’s
not really the season without the
Consort,
I
think.”
Markham
had
a
charming
smile
when
he
chose to use it,
boyish
and
friendly.
“You
like
Christmas?
But
I
thought
. .
.”
The
notes
of
a
madrigal
filled
the
small
overcrowded
office.
“After
all,
Cassandra—”
“Well,
Cassandra hates the commercialism, of course,
but
she tolerates
Christmas.”
“Could
have
fooled
me.”
“Cassie
doesn’t
approve
of cutting
down
a
living
tree and sticking it in your
living
room to die, who does? But she cele brates the spirit of peace and goodwill in her
own
way.
She’s
not
religious
though,
I
wouldn’t
want
you
to
get
the
wrong
idea.”
Was
it
possible
they
were
speaking
of
two
different
women?
“May I
take
your coat?”
Manners too. So
unlike
Wendy
Townsend.
“No, thank
you.”
Lacey
didn’t
want
to point out the
obvious,
that it
was
freezing in his
office.
“I
can’t
stay
long.”
She sat
down
in the chair he had
moved
for
her.
After rear ranging some piles of books and papers, he perched on the cof
fee
table
in
front
of
her,
expectantly. Lacey
would
have preferred him to sit a little
farther
off.
He
picked
up a cup from his desk and
was
about to sip, then remembered more of his manners.
“Can I
offer
you some
coffee?”
Today’s
blend:
Burning
landfill!
“No, thanks. I’m just here about
Cassandra.”
“The doctor said
Cassie’s
getting
stronger.
She’ll
be
fine.
We’re
all terribly
relieved.
But
they
still
won’t
let us see
her.”
Lacey
still
had
trouble
thinking
of
her
as
“Cassie,”
and
following
the
tangled
relationships
among
the
housemates.
“She
doesn’t
remember
anything
about
the
attack.
She
may
never
remember.”
“Is that really so terrible?” Markham mused. “Should she be forced to remember such an ugly
event?
Might be better this
way,
don’t
you think?” He took
off
his glasses, pulled a hand kerchief from his pocket and wiped them
clear.
“Our
minds
protect us from the
aftereffects
of trauma, you
know.
Some times
forgetting
is
best.”
“But what about the guy who did it?
Shouldn’t
he be found,
shouldn’t
he pay?”
“Absolutely.
Of course,
we’d
all
like
to see him
caught.”
He
gazed
into
Lacey’s
eyes.
“But
you
can’t
definitely
say
it
was
a him, can you?”
“Maybe
not.”
Lacy
realized
she’d
been wrong about the lit tle shepherd
“boy.”
Maybe Jasmine
was
wrong about the Santa
“Dude.”
Her hands were cold. She
wondered
if she should
have
accepted a cup of
coffee;
not to drink the nasty
stuff,
but
just to
warm
her
fingers.