 
Begun about 6-24-2013

(Update F9)

FOREWORD 3

Chapter 1: A Three-Sided Bottle 4

Chapter 2: Trash Heads 7

Chapter 3: Helmet In A Box 10

Chapter 4: He Ain't From Around Here 14

Chapter 5: Memorial Day Parade 18

Chapter 6: The Cellar 22

Chapter 7: Clench Bargo 25

Chapter 8: Fourth Of July 29

Chapter 9: Lock, Stock, And Gun Barrels 33

Chapter 10: Cafe Society 36

Chapter 11: Concealed Carry 39

Chapter 12: The Long Arms of the Law 40

Chapter 13: Mrs. Ebrahim 44

Chapter 14: The Scarf Comes Off 47

Chapter 15: Another Cup of Coffee 50

Chapter 16: Debriefing 54

Chapter 17: Media Jihad 57

Chapter 18: They Ain't From Around Here 60

Chapter 19: Rendezvous 64

Chapter 20: Revelations 66

Chapter 21: Heroism Addict 69
Chapter 22: Showdown on Main Street 73

Chapter 23: The Mills of Law Grind Slowly 76
Chapter 24: Just Business 79
Chapter 25: Men in Black and Blue 82

Chapter 26: Enter Adeleh 85

Chapter 27: Greenline Station 89

Chapter 28: Crime Scene 92

Chapter 29: Go To It 95

Chapter 30: Information Exchange 98

The Persian Helmet

# FOREWORD

The Persian helmet in this story is a real helmet, that I really found in a trunk on a curb in the suburbs of Kent, Ohio, in the 1970s. It remains a real mystery. But any resemblance between characters in this story and real persons is purely coincidental.

As was explained in The Wish Book, The Rag and Bone Shop is where Clare Bower sells new merchandise she orders at the original prices from decades of old Sears catalogues.

# Chapter 1: A Three-Sided Bottle

Clare Bower opened the bill from the storage company in Akron, and thought maybe she ought to get everything out of the storage unit.

When she opened The Rag and Bone Shop the year before, after coming to Aunt Del's house in southern Ohio for a quiet vacation, she'd left all her stock from her flea market stall in storage, after her brother ran things for her for a couple of weeks, and didn't think about it in the excitement of opening the store. She'd even forgotten about her favorite free-time activity, shopping yard sales, estate sales, and auctions for old (cheap) stuff. Her store full of old stuff, brand new from old Sears catalogues, took all her time and attention. She still could hardly believe that her luck still held. She was still buying everything from all the old Sears catalogues at the original catalogue prices, and selling them at quite a decent markup. So far, she still sent in her weekly orders and Jackson, the mysterious delivery van driver, still came to town every week and unloaded sparkling new 1937 wringer washers and 1919 bottles of opium-laced ladies' drugs (which she hadn't had the nerve to put on sale) and 1956 furniture, now called "mid-century modern", and sold everything almost as fast as it came in.

But what to do with the old old things?

Her apartment and furniture in north Akron had been easy. Since it became apparent that she was going to be living in Aunt Del's house indefinitely, her friend Roxy Barbarino was subletting the apartment, furnished, and had even driven down to Greenline with all Clare's clothes, and books and music and personal things, in a van.

Storage for the flea market stock didn't cost very much but it was wasting money, and the items were going to waste too. While Clare didn't require a lot, neither did she skimp on herself, but there was no point in throwing money away. She had to make a decision.

This could be a glass of wine over dinner decision, or a coffee and pie decision at the Greenline Café. Too early for wine, which in any case would have been at home since the town didn't have a place to sit and drink. The Greenline was strictly three meals between dawn and dark, and no alcohol. She'd think about it at lunch.

Over her all-beige meal — country fried steak with gravy, mashed potatoes with gravy, and rolls (well, there was a little green salad; pie would come later in the day) — she thought about storing all those nifty little items in the basement. But why not sell them?

A new idea began to form in her mind. She'd open a room in The Rag and Bone Shop for the really old things. An adjunct shop. Simple.

The plan was confirmed when one of the locals stopped in after lunch, wanting to sell an old bottle.

"Well, I know you don't sell things like this," said Clench Bargo, a lanky farmer who worked part-time in the shop, "but it's kind of cool. I know it's old. I dug it up when I was digging a hole for a grape vine. We're planting a small vineyard out back."

Clench Bargo was a veteran of Iraq, and decided to stay on the family farm when he got home. He had new ideas for diversifying the business.

"Oh yeah? Fantastic."

He held out a small three-sided milk glass bottle, possibly an old medicine bottle.

"This is very nice, Clench," Clare said, turning it over in her hands. "No chips or cracks or anything. I'll tell you what, I was just thinking about opening another room for old stuff like this. Not the Sears stuff. But I haven't decided how to do it yet. I mean, I don't know whether to just buy it from you or take it on consignment, and just pay you when it sells. Do you want to leave it here while I think about it?"

"Yeah, I could leave it. How much do you think it's worth?" he asked.

"Well, you know it depends on what someone wants to pay for it. How much they want it. It might go for $5, but you'd have to give me a cut. Like a dollar. Then if you tag it 'make an offer' but with a minimum price... hard to say. Well, I'm going to have to give this some more thought and see what's best for both of us."

"OK. Try $5. You want me to leave this here? So I won't break it."

Clare smiled.

"OK, if you trust me."

"Yeah, looks like you're dug in here."

Before she could get her things out of the storage unit, Clare would have to set up a new room, and then plan on restocking it, if possible, without spending as much time driving around looking for stuff to buy as she used to. Maybe more of the local people would have things to sell in the shop.

She'd expanded from the empty Woolworth's into an empty bakery on one side and an empty shoe store on the other. She would need another space if she wanted to get serious about selling more than the Sears merchandise. Next to the empty shoe store was an empty dress shop.

Greenline, like so many small American towns, had become almost a ghost town as family farms declined or consolidated into corporate farms, jobs disappeared, and people moved on. It wasn't as bad as in the sparsely populated towns of the west, since in Ohio some people could and would commute to the closest city if jobs were available; they were willing to drive an hour each way, or more. Still, the old style small town was disappearing. Seldom would you find a main street in a small rural town with a five and dime, hardware store, bank, department store (clothes, housewares), furniture store, shoestore and shoe repair shop, men's and women's and children's clothing stores, beauty salon and barbershop, drugstore, movie theater, library, fire and police, professional offices, and one or more churches. These essential businesses and services migrated at first to indoor malls, then over the years to the again-popular strip malls near newly constructed housing developments. Even city halls and city services might move to new buildings away from the central downtown. The services and products were available but there was no more center. Online shopping replaced the Sears catalogues for many, but old people who were slower to change their habits drove to a WalMart.

Some little towns tried to keep the old center alive with antique shops or malls, fancy bakeries and restaurants, needlepoint shops and art galleries. People who wanted to stay in their home towns, or who had an urge to slow down and live in a small town, tried to survive with "creative" work. For a while this trend was driven by aging hippies, though entrepreneurs who hoped to avoid higher rents and taxes, and lure city people into driving out of town to specialty shops, took a stab at boutique-ing the small towns. The churches might or might not still be open, but little shoebox churches, and psychic parlors, opened in empty storefronts.

Where the farm economy was still thriving, Mexican laborers, who had once been seen mainly in the southwest, arrived in Ohio in greater numbers and some stayed, opening their own restaurants and bodegas. Here and there were little groceries and restaurants run by Chinese, Indians, Pakistanis, and Middle Easterners, though for the most part they lived and worked in the cities.

Clare speculated on whether she might be able to buy some interesting tchotchkes from any late arrivals to add variety to her stock. You never knew.

But speculation sold no tchotchkes. She could rent the empty dress shop but she'd want an inside door connecting it with the main store. But it might not be possible to put a door in the shared brick wall. Or she could clean up the Woolworth's basement and open up down there. There was a working elevator, since the old Woolworth's had used the basement for stock. Windows wouldn't matter. She could put a small display in the big store windows promoting the new room. She went to the Greenline Café to celebrate with strawberry rhubarb pie and coffee.

She told Jeanette about her plans for the new adjunct.

"That's great, Clare! I mean I love what you've got there but it would be nice if we could sell some of our old junk too. I mean stuff. I mean collectibles. I mean my mom's costume jewelry."

"I thought you liked to wear that jewelry," Clare said.

"I do. See, I've got one of her pins on today." She pointed to a rhinestone pin on her uniform blouse.

"I like that. Love rhinestones."

"The problem is there are so many clip-on earrings and nobody wants to wear them. I sure don't. I mean sometimes I used them for pins on my blouses, but not on my ears."

"Well, you could convert them. Maybe I could sell the converter kits."

"Good idea. You want that pie warmed up?"

# Chapter 2: Trash Heads

In a week, the basement and the elevator were cleaned up, but still needed paint, and she needed counters and shelves. She wanted a sign for it to show it was separate. Maybe she could ask Jackson. He was still as maddeningly remote as ever, yet she thought — or did she imagine? — she detected glimmers of warmth ever since he'd appeared at Aunt Del's funeral. And though he was as dependable as the sun about delivering the Sears goods, they'd never discussed the business as such. But it would be a good excuse to engage him more in conversation.

On his next delivery, Clare got some of her younger staff to help him unload the truck.

"Let me show you something new, Jackson," Clare said, delicately placing a hand on his elbow to steer him toward the elevator. "I'm opening a new room for real old stuff, not the Sears things. Some stock from my old flea market business that I'm having brought down from Akron. Or maybe I'll go get it myself, and visit my parents. And then I figure the local people might want to sell some of their things."

The elevator slowly carried them to the basement.

Jackson looked at the clean but empty room.

"You need some counters," he observed. "And brighter lights."

"Did... does Sears sell store shelves and counters? Whoa, I almost couldn't say that," Clare joked. Jackson had never evinced a sense of humor, but he twitched an eyebrow at her tongue twister.

"Look for display cases," he said shortly. "This is a good idea," he added, turning to go back to the elevator. Clare signed the delivery papers and with a sigh watched him go out to his truck, this time a 1949 model.

That evening, over her glass of wine and canned ravioli, she made some notes about the new adjunct shop.

Have to be careful about stolen goods, she thought, and made a note. Maybe I should talk to Sheriff Matheson. She had met him when he arrested her for killing Aunt Del, but they'd been friendly since she was acquitted. There was no point in being sensitive about it. After all, burying Del in the garden did look bad.

Anyway, obviously Clench's little bottle was freshly dug up. Who would steal a tiny old bottle? When she worked the flea market, she bought things from yard sales and estate sales and so on, where stolen goods were not really an issue, and seldom did anyone try to sell her anything. But this shop would be different from the flea market. A magnet.

Maybe Roxy would be willing to drive a rental truck down and back. Maybe I should buy a pickup, Clare thought. And the next day she did, at the closest dealer. It was wonderful how money made it possible to put thought into action so rapidly. And now she wouldn't have to put unnecessary wear and tear on the '64 Valiant.

Roxy was willing to help load the truck, and as usual, the deal was that she would get expenses plus a story for the magazine she worked for in Akron, Adventuress.

"Of course," Clare said on the phone. "But there's not much of a story. I mean, The Rag and Bone Shop was a story, the Sears merch was and is a story, but you've already done that one. Opening a junque shop is not news." Clare pronounced it jun-kway so Roxy would know she was being tongue in cheek, as when they called Target Tar-zhay or WalMart ValMar.

"Maybe so, but you have a way of attracting news. Look what happened when you thought you'd just spend a couple of quiet weeks in the country with your old aunt."

"Yeah, but I'd been down here lots of times before and nothing happened."

"I think that part of your life is over. Because Jackson is still happening. Anyway, you want to come up a visit your folks for a couple of days and hang out?"

"Yeah, of course. Want anything from the store?"

"Ooh, probably. How about some of that ladies' tonic? You still have it in the back room?"

"Uh, yeah. I'll bring you a bottle. But just one. How about if I come up Memorial Day weekend?"

"That would be good. But you want to close the store that weekend?"

"Maybe I should come up the weekend before. There will be lots of people making road trips on the long weekend, so lots of business."

"Right."

"And Greenline is having some kind of festivities, a parade and picnic in the park. I should be there."

Clare got a trusted employee to cover the store on a Saturday and on Friday evening made the four-hour trip in five hours, as usual, because she always stopped to eat at one of the Cracker Barrel restaurants on the way. She liked looking at the antiques hanging on the walls, and the food was plain, familiar, predictable, and good. Roxy let her in when she arrived at her old apartment; though Clare still had the key, she thought it good manners to knock.

"You can sleep in your own bed," Roxy said. "You don't have to camp out on the couch."

"Thanks, but the couch is fine. It's pretty comfortable. I used to fall asleep there often enough watching TV. Uh, how's Jim?"

Jim Rainbolt was Roxy's boyfriend.

"Just fine. Really, he should drive down with me and take some photos of the store for the next story. My little Android snapshots are barely adequate."

"Yeah, why don't you ask him. He can be back on time for work on Monday."

"OK. So what do you want to do first?"

"Get something to eat. In the morning I'll go to the storage unit and close it out, and then visit my parents. Of course I'd love to stop in at the flea market if we have time. The storage unit isn't far from there. We can drive down to Greenline on Sunday, if that's OK with you."

"Sure, I don't have any other plans."

Saturday morning they took care of business and loaded the pickup truck with boxes. The pickup had a large bed, and Clare hadn't accumulated more than it would hold for any one day's sale, aside from a few pieces of old furniture in the storage unit.

"I'm so glad I don't have to do that anymore," Clare sighed. "What a chore, setting up those tables and packing up every day. I never got an inside booth, where I could have left things sit overnight. Wasn't sure if I could make the rent."

Clare closed accounts with the storage company and suggested that they eat at the huge restaurant at the Hartville flea market, another Mennonite enterprise. The menu was similar to Cracker Barrel's, sort of home cooking with whatever advantages and disadvantages produced by economies of scale. Maybe blander than Cracker Barrel's. Then Clare wanted to take a look at the flea market, which she hadn't seen since the summer previous, before the still inexplicable Sears catalogue phenomenon turned her life around.

She said hello to a few vendors she knew, some of whom had heard of her Sears shop, but she didn't really want to talk much.

"Look for the next article on the shop in Adventuress magazine," she said. "My friend Roxy Barbarino here is going to do a longer story on it, right?"

"Oh yeah, and there will be photos," Roxy promised.

"Well, we better hit the road. I've really got to stop by my parents'," Clare said, herding Roxy toward the parking lot. They got in the truck and headed back toward Akron.

"Ooh, look!" Clare pointed to the miscellany of junk on the curbs in her parents' neighborhood. "It must be large object collection day."

"On Saturday?"

"Well, you know, probably Monday but everyone's putting their stuff out all weekend. I am such a trash head."

She slowed down to get a better look at things, most of which was of no interest. Old playpens, broken cheap computer desks, old computers, tires, torn out plumbing and wallboard. Someone somewhere could resell or scrap it, but even trash pickers would let most of this flotsam and jetsam go to the dump.

"Wait a minute, what's that?"

"What are you looking at?" Roxy said.

"That trunk. Or foot locker. Pull over."

It was an ordinary black trunk with brass hardware, not especially old or interesting in design, reasonably clean and in fairly good condition. Clare got out of the truck and walked over to examine it.

The trunk was locked with a small padlock. But something was inside. When she lifted one end by the handle, something slid around inside, something hard and solid. The trunk was light enough for her to lift but big enough to be awkward.

"Help me with this, Roxy, I'm taking it."

"I guess it's OK, considering everyone is putting out their junk today."

Clare looked at the house from which the trunk had presumably been ejected. An ordinary looking ranch house with ordinary shrubbery. She thought someone looked out from behind a curtain, but wasn't sure. She hesitated briefly to see if anyone rushed out, having suddenly decided to keep the trunk and whatever was in it, but no one did, so she and Roxy lifted it into the truck and drove away.

# Chapter 3: Helmet In A Box

Jim didn't go with them but promised to come down on the longer Memorial Day weekend and take photos. They waited till Sunday afternoon to drive back to Greenline so Roxy could go to Mass with her parents.

"Don't worry, Roxy, no need to carry all those boxes again. The store is closed on Mondays, except for the holiday weekend, but I'll call some of the staff to help in the morning. And if you have time, maybe you'll have some suggestions for the new room. Does it need its own name, and what color to paint it." Clare added hastily, when she saw Roxy's raised eyebrows, "No, no, no painting. Just advice."

Clare called Clench Bargo and arranged for him to unload the truck on Monday morning, but the boxes would have to sit on the floor until she could get some cabinets.

"I could afford to buy some antique display cases, but is it worth the money, or should I just get some cheap shelves?" she mused aloud to Roxy.

"Well, you could start thinking of the store as a destination in itself, a cute sort of tourist stop, not that it isn't already. Get an old Coca-Cola cooler too. I mean, keep it simple but add a few touches here and there."

"Yeah, but I don't want people drinking pop around the merchandise."

"Carry out only. No bottle opener. And glass bottles, of course, not plastic or cans. Are you going to put books in the new room too?"

"Well, I have a few books from the Sears catalogues, but I don't want to have to learn about the rare books business. I guess if the locals have books they want to sell, I could handle that. Within limits. They could take up a lot of room."

"Hey, Clare, what about this trunk? It's locked," Clench called out.

"Oh yeah, the trunk," Clare said. She and Roxy walked over to him and examined the lock.

"That padlock isn't worth saving so I'm not going to call a locksmith. We need bolt cutters. But I don't have any."

"I've got some at home," Clench offered.

"Maybe I should just buy some," Clare said. "Here, would you run down to the hardware store and buy bolt cutters? Is this enough?" She handed him $40.

"Oh yeah, more than enough. Be right back."

When he left, Clare said to Roxy, "Sometimes I buy tools from the Sears catalogues, but just for my own use. I could sell them in the store but I don't want to undercut Mr. Ernst."

The hardware store was just a couple of blocks down the street and Clench was back soon, with change.

"Receipt too, Clench. I have to keep the books straight, you know."

He pulled the receipt out of his pocket and handed it to Clare, then quickly and neatly cut the padlock. He opened the trunk and stood back as all three of them peered in.

Inside was a bulky object wrapped in an old sheet. Clare picked it up and removed the sheet, revealing a peculiar steel helmet. It had a spike on top, and on the sides and in front of the spike tubes were attached that must have held something at one time: more spikes? feathers? A brass filigree ornament was on the front band that held the center tube. Small holes circled the edge and also the medallion. Clare looked inside.

"You couldn't wear this, there probably would have been a leather inner helmet attached at those holes," Clare said. "It's sure not American. I've never seen anything like it. And look at this."

The conical helmet was etched all over with intricate outlines of people.

"Maybe it's a theatrical prop," Roxy suggested.

"But you couldn't see these etchings from the stage."

"Well, this would be a great piece to launch your new room with," Roxy said as she got out her camera. "Let me take some photos. Jim will take good photos for the magazine but I just want some to prod my memory as I write the article."

"Yeah, but I don't think I'm going to sell it. Not yet anyway. Have no idea what it is. And why would anyone throw this out, in a locked trunk?"

"A locked trunk mystery!" Roxy said dramatically. She was a mystery fan.

"It might be a bank vault mystery, because I don't want to leave it sitting out. It could go in a glass case. The jewelry cases aren't big enough, though," Clare said. "I'll just take it home till I figure out what to do with it. I'm going to put it in my car, then who wants lunch?"

"I gotta go now," Clench said. "Still working on that vineyard, and Dad wanted me home by lunch. Thanks anyway."

Clare paid him — he worked on an hour-by-hour or day-by-day cash basis — then she and Roxy walked over to the cafe.

"So the first story was just a notice about your opening The Rag and Bone Shop last year," Roxy said as they ate their hamburgers, "but we want a longer piece now about what a success it's been."

"But you can't write anything about how I get the stuff. Where it comes from. Jackson and the trucks. I mean, I don't even know, really. And you know we've tried to follow him out of town and he always loses us."

"Well, there's enough for a great story without that. We also published a short item about your trial, you know, but now we can just focus on the merchandise and the new antique basement, and how the town is reviving. I mean, this can be a continuing story, really, there will always be something new to write about."

"Yeah... of course I want the publicity, not that I need it, but your story will just bring more media down here and it will get crazy. And they'll think I'm crazy if you write about..."

"Well, all they have to do is read the trial transcript to think that," Roxy said bluntly. "But don't worry about me."

"I trust you. I just don't trust... a lot of other people."

"Are you thinking of Ed Bennett?"

"Yeah."

"Well, he's jealous, for sure..."

"Just like a lot of people at the flea market. That's why I didn't want to hang out there for long."

"But what can he do, really?"

"He still comes down to look around and buy things and try to find out where it comes from."

"Well, if he tortures us we'll never tell, because we don't know either," Roxy said matter of factly.

"So, should the new room have a different name, or just be an adjunct to The Rag and Bone?" Clare asked.

"I think just an adjunct. You could have a name on the door, the elevator door, and inside the room, and in the show window, you need good signs. But I wouldn't actually give it a different name other than that; then you might as well set up a new business entity. Too much trouble."

"So what goes on the sign? Buy and sell antiques and collectibles.

"Yeah, that's good. Print "buy and sell" in big letters. And you've got to figure out the percentage to give the people who bring their stuff in."

"Well, I'm thinking 50% or maybe more. 75%. Really, I'm making money from the Sears stuff, I don't need to make much from the other stuff. I mean, people will bring it to me, I don't even have to go out looking for it, and everyone around here needs the money."

"You could call it Unsears."

"Hmm."

"Not crazy about it?"

"No."

"How about... Your Stuff?"

"Better."

"Stuff It?"

"No."

"Well Seasoned."

"A little too..."

"Maybe just The Antique Cellar?"

"That's it," Clare said.

"Or The Sellers' Cellar? Get it?"

"Yeah, I get it. But... just The Cellar. And not Antique because some stuff might not be antique. Why lock ourselves in? I'll get some signs made up."

"I feel like I just did a day's work," Roxy said.

"You didn't. But you helped."

"OK. So, paint?"

"Just white, I think."

"Can I get you anything or order anything from Akron? Like, is there a place around here to get signs made?"

"I think so, in the next town over. Not too far. And I'll get paint at the hardware store down the street, that selfsame place that had the bolt cutters. I like to patronize the local businesses when possible."

"Good idea."

"And I want to go to the bank."

Clare got the helmet out of the trunk and carried it to the bank.

"Hi, how are you?" she greeted the teller, who knew her. "I need to rent a bank deposit box. Big enough for this."

"Oh my," the teller said. "What on earth? Let me get one of the managers."

It was a matter of moments to rent a safe deposit box big enough for the helmet, and Clare thought she might as well get one with enough room for valuable papers too.

"And I want my parents to be able to have access to it, if necessary."

Clare and Roxy went to the hardware store to choose among shades of white paint and buy brushes and rollers and so on.

"How are the light fixtures in that basement?" asked the clerk. "It's been years since I was down there, but I was in there a long time ago."

"Well, the lights work and there seem to be plenty of them. I didn't even pay attention to the fixtures. Maybe I'll want to get something nicer, I don't know. I'll get back to you," Clare said. "Oh, I'll need to get the floor polished, maybe. It's old tile, not hardwood like the main floor, but in pretty good condition. I'll get Clench Bargo to take care of that. And the basement is dry."

"You're lucky there."

"Well, thanks. I'll be coming back this week no doubt, but Clench will pick up the paint and stuff later," Clare said.

Roxy returned to Akron the next day, with a couple of bottles of opium and cocaine-laced tonic for ladies.

"What that stuff, Roxy," Clare said warningly.

"Hey, don't worry about me. I'll be back with Jim this weekend."

"Yeah, meanwhile, no open bottles in the car."

"Of course not. You know me better than that."

"Anyway, your boss is OK with you taking off today?"

"Oh yeah. She's hot for this story."

# Chapter 4: He Ain't From Around Here

Roxy returned the next Friday evening with her boyfriend, Jim Rainbolt, a photographer at the company she worked at before becoming a writer on the staff of Adventuress magazine in Akron. Clare had made up the spare room for them. An old lady named Caroline had lived with and kept house for Aunt Del for ages until she retired and went to live with relatives, not long before Del died, but so far Clare had not hired anyone to clean. There was dust. But she installed a dishwasher, and a modern washer and dryer to replace Caroline's wringer washer and clotheslines, and was fairly comfortable.

"Come on in and put those bags down anywhere. Put your feet up," Clare said. "Did you have supper?"

"Oh, yeah, don't worry about us."  
"How about a drink? Irish coffee? You can relax and stay awake at the same time. And you don't have to worry about getting up early."

"That sounds good," Jim said.

"Me too," Roxy added.

"Me too," Clare said, and went into the kitchen to get the drinks. "No, stay there, I'll get it."

They relaxed and caught up with news about people they knew in common.

"Oh, I ran into Ed Bennett downtown," Roxy said. "He asked about you. Or rather about the store. Or rather what I knew about the store, like where you get your stock."

"You know nothing."

"Of course."

"What does he care anyway? It's not his kind of thing. He likes older things, usually, and more expensive things."

"Maybe he's not doing so well and wants to branch out. Anyway I told him we were coming down for the Memorial Day weekend festivities, and that I'm doing another story, and he sounded like he might come down and stop in the store again."

"Oh well. I don't care as long as he doesn't get mad again because he can't find out anything."

"Do you suppose I can get a photo of the mysterious Jackson?" asked Jim, with a wry expression. He wasn't convinced that there was anything odd about the Sears catalogue merchandise even though there was no logical explanation for it. He just decided there must be one, and left it at that.

"Well, I did send in an order the other day. He could show up tomorrow. I've never tried to take a picture of him. Maybe he won't appear on film!" Clare said with a laugh. "Or maybe he just won't want his picture taken."

"I won't ask."

"Is that legal?"

"If he's on the street in public, uh, sure."

"Maybe he's really a criminal and doesn't want to be identified," Roxy suggested.

"Well, that would explain some things. But not everything," Clare said.

They heard a car drive by and slow down in front of the house, then speed up and drive off.

"Huh, maybe that's him," Clare said.

"Don't you worry, living out here by yourself?" Roxy asked. "I mean, there's not another house within sight."

"Well, no. I'm usually too tired to worry. And Aunt Del lived here alone, at least just with Caroline, and they never had any problems. That I know of."

"You might get a security setup for the house, and buy a gun. Take a concealed carry class."

Clare looked startled. "It never occurred to me."

"Well, I did. My dad suggested it, after all t he stuff that happened with the cloning business," Roxy said.

"Oh yeah?"

"I agree," Jim said. "You should consider it."

"I'll think about it. We can look through the Sears catalogues for guns."

Clare fixed breakfast the next morning, over Roxy's objections.

"We'll have lunch at the cafe, and who knows about supper. But you know it's just some bacon and eggs. Or cereal if you prefer. I don't like to eat every meal out, so just relax," Clare said. "This is like cross-training. I do stuff at the store and I do different stuff at home."

They drove the few miles to town, where Clench Bargo was waiting for her.

Clare unlocked the front door to the store.

Clench was wearing his deputy uniform and badge. "I'm on duty for the weekend," he said, "but I just thought I'd check in and see if you need me to do anything. Anything real quick, that is."

"No, that's OK. I've got a couple of the other guys coming in for the holiday weekend in case we get extra busy, so we're good. And we're not opening early, we'll open at noon as usual. But thanks for asking. It's... reassuring to know you'll be around."

"OK then."

"Let's go look in the basement. The Cellar," Clare said to Roxy and Jim. "And maybe you guys can go through the catalogues with me and help me pick out display cabinets. And a gun."

Clench looked startled. Clare explained, "We aren't going to sell guns, I just think I'll get one for protection. At home. I don't think we need one at the store, do you?"

"No, I guess not. Me and Sheriff Matheson give concealed carry classes. If you're interested."

"Yeah, maybe. Keep me posted, and I'll... keep you posted."

Clench walked out, and Clare, Roxy, and Jim took the creaky old elevator down to the lower level, where the walls had been painted but the floor was still needed to have the old polish stripped.

"Isn't he starting a winery?" Roxy asked.

"Yeah, with his dad, on their farm. And he's a part-time deputy. He's like those old-timers, like my grandpa, who did a little of everything, besides farming. Horse-shoeing and blacksmithing and making tools, building houses, selling nursery stock, digging wells, justice of the peace. One of my grandpas even owned a small coal mine and let the neighbors dig out their own coal for a small price or for trade."

The rest of the day was busy with customers (Clare at The Rag and Bone Shop), photos (Jim, all over), and interrupting people to ask questions (Roxy, all over). Most people didn't mind the photos and questions, although one young man pulled his hoodie over his face and ran away from Jim's camera in front of the shop.

"Who's that?" Jim asked Clare, who was near the front door.

"No idea. He ain't from around here, as those who are from around here say. At least as far as I know, but I don't know everyone, of course. I didn't get a close look but he doesn't look familiar. Maybe one of the Mexican field hands?"

"I wonder where he went. And why he's wearing a hoodie. Kind of hot for it. I got a photo but not a full shot of his face."

"Hmm. Well, maybe I should get a print and hang it in the window."

"Why would you do that?"

"I dunno. Just to be friendly. Maybe he'll be back. Was he coming into the store, do you think?"

"Could have been, till I pointed the camera."

"I don't usually open on Sundays or Mondays, but because of Memorial Day weekend I'll be open. Maybe he'll be back. If you'll be here all weekend, stick around and see if he returns. You won't be so conspicuous if you're in the store or in the cafe across the street."

"OK."

"I wonder if I should tell the sheriff."

"Well, he didn't do anything. Just acted suspicious."

"You know what they say, if you see something, say something."

"Do they say that?"

"Yeah."

When they told Roxy about it, she said maybe he knew about the bottles of opium and cocaine tonics in the back.

"I don't know how he would. I certainly don't advertise it, and don't even unload it around the staff," Clare said. "I keep it locked up. And I'm not going to tell the sheriff about them."

On Sunday there was no sign of the escaped evader, as Roxy named him, near the store, but there was some excitement around noon when the sound of a police siren filled the central square. Clare, Roxy, and Jim rushed to the door but didn't see the sheriff's car, only heard it from the alley that ran behind the buildings on the main drag. It sounded like the car was picking up speed and heading toward the end of the street that met a crossroad heading out of town.

"Hmm, maybe you guys can ask around and find out something," Clare said. "I have to open up."

Jim and Roxy ran outside, jumped into their car, and followed the siren, with Roxy driving so Jim would be able to take photos. But they really didn't have the heart or other parts for a lengthy high-speed chase, and didn't want to get in trouble with the sheriff either for interfering and further endangering the public. They slowed down but kept going down, and saw the sheriff's car turn onto a state highway heading north, still at high speed. It wasn't long before they were too far behind to be worth continuing, so Roxy turned the car around and went back to town.

They parked in front of the store and met Clench Bargo, who was talking on his police radio. Clare came to the door to listen. As soon as Clench finished on the radio (he really did say "10-4"), Roxy asked, "What was that all about? We heard the siren and followed the sheriff's car for a ways — well, we didn't speed — but he was following another car and ended up going north and then we got too far behind so we came back."

"The sheriff saw somebody messing around the back of the bank, and when the guy saw him, he ran off and got in his car and drove away. Fast."

"Did he actually break into the bank?"

"No. It's not that easy."

"What did he look like?"

"I didn't see him, but Sheriff Matheson said he was a young male, dark hair, kind of tan looking, wearing a gray hoodie."  
"That sounds like the guy who ran away when I tried to take his picture right here, just before the store opened!" Jim explained what happened.

"Well, maybe you could give us the picture. E-mail it. The sheriff got his license plate number but once he gets to the next county we can't follow him. He reported it to the state police, though."

"I'd like to find out who he is, if possible. I guess it will be reported in your local paper?"

"Uh, I don't know. Maybe you could write up a paragraph since you actually followed him a piece, and you've got a photo. I'll introduce you to the editor."

"Great!"

# Chapter 5: Memorial Day Parade

Among the Monday Memorial Day (observed, not actual) festivities was a parade, and as a prominent business owner Clare decided to participate in the cavalcade on the short strip of street from the courthouse to the park. Too bad the '64 Valiant wasn't a convertible, but she could ride in the back of her new silver pickup. (She had been informed that the three cool colors for pickups were silver, black, and red.) She got some hay bales to make seats in the back. Jim said he would drive, and Roxy would dress up in a frou-frou dress from the store, circa 1955, with a very full circle skirt and puffy crinolines. Clare had taken the helmet out of the vault on Saturday and filled the empty brackets with candles.

"OK, Roxy, you'll light them but be careful. I don't want the hay to catch on fire."

"Uh, that might be hard to control. I mean, sparks could fly out... in other words, are you insane?"

"Well, I guess we could get something else to sit on besides hay bales. But chairs would be too tippy. What if we totally wrap a couple of bales in heavy aluminum foil? I'm going to go buy some rolls. And it will look fantastic too."

Roxy rolled her eyes. "That will be comfy."

"Comfort isn't everything. And it will only be for a few minutes. Too bad I don't have a horse."

"Hmm, maybe you could borrow one. And wrap it in tin foil."

"It's kind of short notice. I'll go with the truck. Wouldn't want to hurt a horse."

"So what are you going to wear? That will go with a flaming helmet? Fifties frou-frou won't exactly do it."

"Well, armor, but I don't have any. I do have some leather pants and a leather jacket, and I could wear my silver sequin top. That sort of looks like armor. No one will be looking at my clothes anyway. The real question is how I can keep that helmet on my head. It will just cover my whole head like a bucket."

"It would take too long to fit it up with an inner lining, but... maybe some kind of smaller hat, or wrap your head with a turban, a towel maybe... And speaking of buckets, let's put a bucket of water in the truck just in case."

"Ooh ooh," Clare interjected. "I've got just the thing, down in The Cellar, from the flea market. An old Civil Defense helmet. It's hard and it will probably fit. Maybe. I'll see if it fits."

The helmet was a roaring, or flaming, success, and when they reached the park, Clare walked around for a while talking to people, holding her head carefully upright as the candles burned.

Small children were entranced and wanted to see it up close, or grab it, or wear it themselves. Dozens of people snapped photos, including Jim, after he parked the truck.

"Who are you supposed to be?" one old lady asked.

"I hadn't thought about it really. Just what you see here," said Clare.

"Did you get that okayed by the fire marshal?" Clench asked, but he was smiling.

"No. Better to ask forgiveness than permission, is my motto," she answered.

Clare carried the helmet back with her to the shop, temporarily locking it in the elevator, which required a key to operate, thus keeping nosy shoppers out of it. She was busy in The Rag and Bone Shop after the parade, with a holiday crowd making road trips from all over Ohio and even surrounding states. Jim and Roxy left later Monday afternoon. Nothing more out of the ordinary happened, no attempted break-ins or exciting car chases.

Clare took the helmet home to look at it more carefully. Maybe she could find out something about it on the Web. One of her worries about moving to this little southern Ohio town was that she wouldn't have a fast Internet connection, but that proved to be no problem. Everyone was connected to something.

The problem was how to go about looking up something when you didn't know what it was. At least, she didn't know more than that it was a steel helmet, with etchings and a spike and brackets on it. It's not like you could scan an object and do a search to match the image, although she understood that programs or apps existed to identify music picked up by a mike, but they only matched recorded music in the databank. All she could do was search for word combinations, and see what images turned up.

A search for "helmet" turned up more than 42 million pages, but that included things like motorcycle helmets. "Steel helmet" turned up more than seven million pages. "Steel helmet with spike", a mere 589,000. "Conical steel helmet with spike", 20,300.

She was pretty sure it wasn't any kind of German helmet that she'd seen in World War II movies, and she thought it must be older than twentieth century anyway, though not entirely hand-made. The conical helmet must have been machine turned, it was too smoothly symmetrical to have been beaten out by hand. But the etchings must have been done by hand. It was hard to tell what they were. They reminded her somewhat of a primitive form of the face cards in a deck of playing cards, or possibly Tarot cards.

She shuffled through photos and drawings. The Russians seemed to go in for conical helmets in the old days, but they weren't the same. A couple of hours of searching and linking and looking brought no answers.

"Etched spiked helmet" seemed like a long-shot but turned up 8,220,000 listings, and one link near the top of the listings, to a collector's book, showed a page of catalogue listings including this description: "Dome-shaped helmet with spike finial, inlaid gold inscriptions and leafage, nasal guard and chain mail veil." A similar description read: "Damascened and deeply etched dome-shaped helmet representing animals and birds; and with bands of inscriptions; nasal guard and chain mail veil." Unfortunately there were no pictures, but there were other similar descriptions, none of which precisely matched her helmet. She had part of a nasal guard with no veil, but one had probably been attached at one time, and instead of inscriptions or animals and birds, she had human figures.

Clare thought these descriptions were close enough, and they were all labeled Indo-Persian. Further searches for Indo-Persian helmets produced a lot of photos of helmets similar to hers, though none were identical to hers, or to each other. They could not have been mass produced. But she felt confident that she was on the right track.

So, Persian. Or Indian? Which was it? One similar helmet she found online was inscribed with Arabic writing, so she'd go with Persian.

Some helmets were for sale on Ebay and elsewhere, priced at hundreds to thousands of dollars. The helmet had better go back into the vault.

But the question remained, why would someone throw this out? Another question was what was it doing in Akron in the first place? Anybody could be a collector, but collectors generally didn't just throw things out on the curb for trash pickup.

Clare felt she had made some progress, though to what end she could not tell. She became drowsy and dozed off on the couch with visions of The Arabian Nights playing in her mind.

Suddenly she woke up. Aunt Del's cat Smoky jumped up beside her with a tinkle of the tiny bell on its collar. Clare thought she heard a sound outside, like someone walking, but the wind was blowing and rattling the windows so it was impossible to distinguish sounds. She got up and turned on the porch light without opening the door, and the big spotlight out back like those that many farmers installed on poles in their barnyards. Lawns and barnyards were kept clear of unwanted overgrowth to keep varmints away from the house, and bright lights helped. Ordinarily Clare liked the dark, away from town, where you could actually see millions of stars, but tonight she didn't want to wander around outside and gaze into the sky.

"I have to buy a gun and take that class," she thought.

She collected a few of Del's old Sears catalogues and sat down with a glass of wine to look through the gun pages. She thought the war years might be good — or maybe not, maybe the gun companies were doing all their work or their best work for the military. Maybe the newest catalogues would be best. She knew nothing about guns, but she thought she'd like a small one for her purse and pocket, and a bigger pistol for the house, plus a shotgun and a rifle. And if Clench advised her to, she could go to the nearest gun dealer. She filled out the order form and smiled, wondering what Jackson would think.

The next day she found Clench downtown and told him about the Sears guns.

"Well, there's gonna be a gun show next week, in the next county," he said.

"A gun show?"

"It's where a lot of dealers get together in a big building and sell guns, ammo, knives, and so on. A lot of people around here go."

"Oh. Well, that would be interesting, but I'm still not sure what I should get. Although I did already order four different ones." She told him what she'd order from Sears.

"Well, you did all right, but you definitely need some training. And you've got to get licensed, especially if you want to carry that little firecracker in your purse. Say, you know you have to pick up the guns from an FFL. You think this Jackson guy is going to bring 'em to your house in his truck?"

Clench had of course seen Jackson many times, but didn't exactly know or understand how the Sears connection worked.

"What's an FFL?"

"Federal Firearms Licensee. You still have to get a background check even if you order by mail or online."  
"Oh. Well, no, there was nothing in the catalogue. I guess they'll let me know if I have to do it."

"You'd better just get started doing that anyway."

"OK."

"And let me know if Jackson brings those guns."

Clare didn't answer.

"And let me know if you want to go to that gun show. I could go along and help you out. My dad wants to go anyway."

"I'll let you know."

Clare wondered if Clench was getting personally interested in her. She still felt a kind of connection with Jackson, something unexplained and unlike anything she'd experienced before. But he was still a will o' the wisp. She only saw him when he delivered her Sears orders, and then not for long. He didn't talk much although he always seemed to be looking at her with unspoken meaning. Sometimes she thought he wouldn't cast a shadow, but he did; she had checked. But what did Jackson ever do besides drive a truck and unload it? And he wasn't around regularly anyway.

Clench was the opposite. Very real and solid and tough and grounded, although she'd heard rumors that he suffered from bouts of PTSD after his Afghanistan tours. But he belonged to two of the most solid and real professions: farmer and soldier, and now he was even a lawman. He had practical skills and ambitions and always seemed straightforward. He'd gone away to war, then came back to his home. He was farming with his father, as they always had, while starting a new venture. He would probably always stay there.

Clare asked herself what skills she had. Buying and selling? She had something of a business head, but was that a skill? She vaguely remembered something she'd learned in college, some economist had called England a nation of shopkeepers. Was that bad? A nation of skilled artisans would sound better, but should the artisans and manufacturers have to waste time flogging their own wares? Shopkeepers provided a much needed service.

She poured herself another glass of wine and turned on the TV. She would add to her skills. She would learn about guns.

She heard, or imagined, no more unfamiliar sounds that night other than a couple of cars on the road.

# Chapter 6: The Cellar

That morning Clare returned the helmet to the safety deposit box, and the rest of the week after the Memorial Day weekend excitements was devoted to making The Cellar ready. Clare ordered display cabinets from Sears. One of the many bonuses of being able to order from all the old Sears catalogues was that her orders were delivered quickly, within a couple of days. All things considered, Clare was surprised everything didn't just appear in front of her the instant she filled in the order forms.

After Aunt Del died, her checks were confiscated and her bank account frozen, but Clare found that she was able to resume ordering from the Sears catalogues with her own checks. This was as inexplicable as the fact of the live catalogues. She knew it had something to do with Jackson, but he wasn't talking.

By Thursday, the basement was painted, the floors polished, and the display cases delivered and in place.

Clare told Jackson what was going on with The Cellar, and explained that it wouldn't interfere with the Sears shop.

"I have some things left from my flea market days to start off with, and the deputy gave me an old glass bottle he wants to sell."

Jackson raised an eyebrow at the mention of the deputy, or was it the bottle? Just one eyebrow.

"I expect everyone around here will appreciate this."

"Maybe."

"Probably not as much as the Sears houses, though."

The greatest Rag and Bone success was the Sears house kits, and if Clare could have ordered plots of land from Sears catalogues, she could have sold millions of acres.

"And I've got an interesting antique helmet I want to show you. It's in the bank vault right now though. Maybe you might have an idea about what it is or where it came from?"

Jackson didn't answer, and drove away.

She got to work arranging her old flea market stock in the cabinets. She hadn't had a particular specialty when she worked the Hartville flea market. Some dealers just sold jewelry, or military items, or books and magazines, or household linens, or Depression glass, or tools; or they might pick an era. Clare bought things she liked, that she thought someone would buy, and that didn't cost a lot because she never had much cash flow. Also, she didn't buy anything very large and heavy, because of her daily unpacking and packing. Thus stocking the display cases wasn't a hard job. But the huge area still looked pretty bare. Whereas before she'd had a few tables under a canopy, now she had many square feet to work in, and not much stuff. Time to tap into the locals.

She foresaw that many people would want to treat The Cellar as a sort of permanent yard sale and bring in things she didn't want to carry, so she'd have to screen everything. Or as a pawn shop, where they could borrow cash. It would be too hard to draw up a list of what she would and wouldn't put in the store because she'd forget things, and there would always be exceptions. She'd have to go on an item by item basis, which was how she'd worked before anyway. Eventually everyone would get an idea of the kinds of things that would fit in The Cellar.

The little bottle Clench had brought her went into the top shelf of the center glass-topped case, sitting on a doily. She marked it $5, which was more than she would pay for it, but plenty of her customers would pay that, and Clench deserved it for sparking the idea for The Cellar.

She set about writing a flyer for the window advertising The Cellar and encouraging everyone to bring in their old things for consideration. She still wasn't sure whether or not to buy things outright or hold them on consignment, and sat down to work some numbers.

It would be a good idea to put an ad in the local paper too. She walked down the street to the Greenline Week newspaper building and placed a small display ad, and bought the weekly paper at the same time. The lead story was about the Memorial Day parade, picnic, and so on, and the front page carried a photo of Clare in the flaming helmet, with the caption, Clare Bower sets the parade on fire. The story was larded with similar zingers: Memorial Day a blazing success, It was a hot time in the old town, and so on. The punning allusions were to the high temperatures on Monday as well as to the candles in the helmet. Clare wondered if schools of journalism now offered required courses in lame puns as graduation requirements.

At least they got her name right, though she really didn't care about that, only about the name of her store. They got that right too, and fortunately didn't allude to fire when mentioning The Rag and Bone Shop.

The enterprising owners of the little newspaper also owned the town's copy shop, so Clare had a few simple flyers made up to tell people about The Cellar:

Too good for a yard sale? Bring it to

THE CELLAR

under THE RAG AND BONE SHOP

Now buying and selling your old stuff.

Clare realized that somewhere, someone would read "Too good for a yard sale?" as a personal insult, as in, "Do you think you are too good for a yard sale", but whether the answer was yes or no, that person might come into the store anyway. There was no end to the ways in which people could choose to feel offended. She thought it might be a good idea to aggressively insult touchy people, like the guy in Crocodile Dundee confronted with knife-wielding thugs: "You call that a knife? This is a knife!" ("You think that was an insult? I'll give you an insult!") Maybe she could cultivate a persona of insult. Become a town "character". Pre-emptive insults. Which naturally led her to an image of herself with a shoulder holster and a knife in her boot. She'd have to get some cool boots. Fancy cowboy boots. And take that concealed carry class. Then no insults would be necessary.

After taping up flyers on the front windows, Clare took a look around The Cellar to see what else she could do until people started bringing in their things. She sang to herself to the tune of the old hymn "Bringing in the Sheaves", "Bringing in the things, bringing in the things, We shall come rejoicing bringing in the things."

There was a lot of bare wall space. Eventually maybe she'd have pictures to hang, for sale, but meanwhile.... She remembered the boxes of old Life magazines from the flea market stock. She'd found them in an abandoned house, otherwise empty, and gave them to friends of hers who opened a small restaurant in Riley. She suggested they name the place The Life of Riley and frame the magazine covers to hang on the wall, and then she designed menus for them that looked like old Life magazines. Unfortunately the restaurant closed when their partners, a married couple, split and stopped working all of a sudden. Clare was able to retrieve the now-framed Life covers as well as their innards, and decided to hang the covers on The Cellar walls. She could always sell them if she got tired of looking at them, or thought of something better. She got her hammer and assorted picture hangers.

# Chapter 7: Clench Bargo

The next day Clare found Clench Bargo at the cafe having lunch.

"Hi there! Do you mind if I sit with you? I'd like to ask you more about the concealed carry class."

"Sure thing. Sit down."

He looked pleased.

"Well, we've been giving classes once a month. All day on a Saturday. It's a long day, 12 hours. Got one coming up in a couple of weeks. It'll be just after Independence Day."

"Good timing. Meanwhile, should I get a guard dog?"

"Not unless you want to spend a lot of time with it. I guess you're not home all that much."

"No, not really. I've got a cat already, my aunt's cat. Smoky. He might not adjust well to a dog."

"I wouldn't recommend it. Not unless you just want a dog to hang out with. Take him with you to work."

"Well, I could get a house alarm system."

"That's not a bad idea. Yeah, do that. You should be able to get installation pretty quick. And get one for the store too. More people are coming in from out of town now that you've opened your store. Not that we don't have a few Ali Babas around here, but we know who they are and what they do, and the kinds of things they do. There's a place over in the next town that does alarm systems that's pretty reliable."

"Ali Babas?"

"That what we called thieves in Iraq. I mean you could hardly call them, uh, cat burglars or rustlers or welshers or... sometimes it meant insurgents."

"So when in Rome."

"Something like that. You ought to hear what we call thieves and other criminals here."

"By the way, did the sheriff ever identify that guy he was chasing down the road, who was sniffing around in the alley?"

"No. The guy had rubbed mud over his license plates so he never got a good look at the car. I don't guess he'll be back. Anyway, I don't suppose those Sears guns have arrived yet?"

"No. When we're done eating, do you want to see The Cellar? I put that bottle you gave me in pride of place."

"Sure."

They concentrated on their food for a few minutes.

"By the way, if you don't mind my asking, how did you get the name 'Clench'? It's so unusual. Although I've heard of the Clinch Mountain Boys, Ralph Stanley's band. Bluegrass. You like Bluegrass?"

"Yeah, I like it, I even pick a little banjo. But that's not where my name came from. And Clinch Mountain is in the Appalachians, spelled with an 'i', not an 'e'. But me, my mama said that when I was born I reached out and wrapped my hand around her finger and held on tight. Clenched it. Although going back some generations my family did have hunting dogs that were called Clench. Old English name."

"I like it. I didn't know you played banjo. Is there anything you don't do?"

Clench smiled and blushed.

"Well, I'm not that good at it. You have to play every day to be any good and I'm too busy. But once in a while I play with some of the boys around here. Frailing." He held his right hand up in playing position. "Do you play an instrument?"

"Oh no. No talent really or maybe no discipline. Anyway I never learned. Can't sing either."

"I sing along with the boys when we jam but only when I have other voices to drown me out. We're probably going to do a little something for the July 4th festival."

"Oh wow, that's coming up already, isn't it."

"You gonna wear that helmet again?"

"Ha! I don't know. I suppose there's going to be another parade."

"Yeah, and fireworks."

"I think the Fourth is on a Thursday this year. Do they celebrate on the day or shove it into the weekend?"

"No, we do it on the day. But the parade is in the evening so as not to cut into the work day. Not everybody gets off. I'll be marching with the vets. Got a few old guys from World War II who still come out in their uniforms."

"You were in the Army, right?"

"Yeah, in Iraq."

"What was your job?"

"I was a linguist. A translator. Went to the Defense Language Institute at the Presidio of Monterey and learned Arabic and Farsi."

"Wow! I'm impressed."

"I spent a long time studying so they didn't want to release me after investing so much in my education. I had three tours in Iraq, and now I'm in the Reserves."

"Gee, if you'd stayed in a little longer you could have retired with a pension."

"It was time for me to leave. I want to... help out, but I had enough."

"Understandable. I guess it's not exactly Tales of the Arabian Nights."

"Not hardly. More like a thousand and one nights, and counting."

He gave a lopsided smile, a brief one, and went back to eating. Clare thought maybe she shouldn't ask too many questions.

"I think I'll get some pie," she said, picking up the menu again, and ordered lemon meringue.

"Back when I was a student I had some neighbors across the hall in this apartment building who must have been from Iran," Clare said. "Our doors faced each other, and if we opened them at the same time there was this huge poster staring at me, the Ayatollah Khomeini. Really fierce looking. We never did get very friendly. At all. Funny thing was about the same time I made friends with this woman who managed the apartment complex with her husband. One time she was interviewing a couple of prospective tenants, graduate students from someplace in the middle east, and she didn't like their attitude. Maybe they wanted to talk to her husband, but he had another day job. So she said, 'Look into my eyes! These are the eyes of an American woman!' She was a tough little thing. I think they ended up not renting there."

Finally Clare stood up and said, "I better go back to the store. I'll get back to you about that class. Uh, I've got to get back here too later, to pick up something to take home for supper. I'll just put in my order now."

"Do you always eat out?"

"Mostly, at least when I'm working, which is a lot. Once in a while on my days off I'll cook a little but it's hard just for one person. My refrigerator is full of jars of things, olives, pickles, mustard, sauces, relish, horseradish, all kinds of stuff but nothing to eat. I'm all hat and no cattle when it comes to food."

"Well, living at home I'm lucky I still get to eat my mom's cooking."

Clare tried not to look as interested as she felt about the idea of someone's mom's home cooking, and went up to the cash register to pay and put in her take-out order for later.

With a couple of days, people started trickling into the store with things to sell. Everyone was cleaning out their basements and closets for their summer yard sales. Clare decided she'd have to try to limit the hours she'd be available to buy items — she had decided to buy outright rather than take things on consignment, it was just easier. She could make exceptions if she felt like it. And she'd make an exception about her hours too, if someone drove much of a distance to try to sell something. But she made new flyers and changed her newspaper ad, including her open-for-buying hours.

Occasionally someone had tried to persuade her to buy something at the flea market, something she didn't want, but there it was easy to steer them to some other vendors without discouraging them too much.

One thing she had tried very hard to manage since she'd opened the store was to avoid letting people know where she lived. Of course all the old locals knew, and she'd had enough publicity to make anonymity impossible. They were pretty respectful. They didn't want outsiders butting in either, though they welcomed the new business. Clare put up a "Private drive" sign at the house and hoped for the best. The store had a phone, a real land-line telephone, and she avoided using her cell phone for business.

After Clench's little bottle, the first item she acquired for The Cellar was an old wooden sled that some farmer had made for his grandkids probably sixty years before. It was a small version of the large sleds he made for working on the farm, that horses pulled loaded with hay bales and sacks of feed. He'd made the metal hinges himself too.

As usual Clare couldn't understand why the family would get rid of something like that, but often after a couple of generations had passed — and she figured 60-plus years must equal three generations — and only relatives by marriage, not by blood, were in possession, these items were disposed of. Maybe they really needed the money, she thought charitably.

"This is a wonderful piece," she said, and paid a good price for it. She would sell it for an even better price.

Clench brought in a couple more jars and bottles and some buttons he dug up.

"You cleaned these up really well," Clare said. "I appreciate that."

Again the lopsided smile. He wasn't really boyishly diffident (except about his banjo picking) or shy, just pleasingly asymmetrical when he smiled.

# Chapter 8: Fourth Of July

The Fourth of July was a hot one, as everyone kept saying. The Rag and Bone Shop would close early, at 5:00; the parade would begin at 6:00 and end in the little park downtown, like the Memorial Day parade. People brought picnics for the park and vendors also set up their stands with the usual festival food and drink. There would be patriotic music from the band in the gazebo, speeches, and a reading of the Declaration of Independence, maybe dancing if anyone would work up the energy to get up on the basketball court in the park and do it, and of course a fireworks display beginning just after sundown.

Clare prepared by getting the helmet out of the bank again, and fitting out the truck bed with wrapped hay bales again. Roxy and Jim came down again to get more story material and photos. More than they needed, Clare thought, but she appreciated their company, since her life was all work now. She loved the work, but she sometimes felt rather forlorn away from her family and friends. It was only about a four-hour drive, but that was long enough to make any visit a special occasion, not like a quick drive across town or even across the county.

"Are you going to wear this get-up on every holiday from now on?" Roxy asked.

"Well, it might be getting a little stale by Halloween," Clare said with a laugh. "But as for Christmas, don't the Swedish girls wear flaming candle wreaths on their heads at Christmas?"

"Yeah, they do. But not Christmas, it's on Saint Lucy's Day, before Christmas."

"How do you know that?

"We learned about the saints in Catholic school."

"You won't be making any allusions to Saint Lucy in your story about me, will you?"

"Ha! No."

"So, are you expecting a lot of people, like on Memorial Day?" Jim asked.

"Probably more, according to the Sheriff's office, Clare answered. "The Fourth always draws in more people from the county. This one is more popular than some other towns', because we start in the afternoon. People don't have to stand around watching a parade in the mid-day sun."

"I can appreciate that. But I brought a hat. Not a big old steel helmet, just your standard issue baseball hat."

And he pulled out a Cleveland Indians hat and slapped it on his head.

"That'll do."

"And I've got a Cincinnati Reds hat in my other pocket." He pulled that one out of another pocket and put it on top of the Indians hat, backwards. "See, I've got myself covered front and back."

Clare and Roxy laughed and Roxy gave him a quick peck under the front brim.

Clare smiled and felt a twinge of envy. Not jealousy about Jim personally, but just about their relationship.

On the Fourth, Clare went to work at the store and Jim and Roxy did their jobs walking around town, although nothing was going other than set-ups. A lot of people came in from out of town to browse through the Sears goods. Clare had decided to make the catalogues available to customers. If they found something she just said, "I'll see if I can locate one of those." A few people came into the store with items to sell, what Clare called "real" things. She still felt that the Sears merchandise was somehow not quite real, because it shouldn't be there, she shouldn't be able to order a 12-foot solid oak dining room table, weight 170 pounds, for $7.60. But who was she to question reality?

Because catalogue ordering was increasing rapidly, she acquired as many old catalogues as she could find, to protect her late Aunt Del's stash, and carefully supervised the use of the old ones.

Farmers were happy to be able to buy old farm equipment their dads or granddads had used. The hippie farmers ordered windmills. The Amish ordered buggies.

She turned down requests from customers to order the opium tonics (though she ordered them her own hidden stash), firearms, or syringes which had been sold for treating livestock. There was no point in attracting attention from the authorities, or attracting criminals. The sheriff liked to show up sometimes when Jackson came in and watch him and the store staff unload the truck, and Clare didn't think it was just idle curiosity. So far he hadn't seen anything questionable. The tonics came discreetly packaged.

But that left thousands of products for customers to order. She knew some people wanted to buy in quantity to stock their own shops, but she limited quantities to modest amounts. She didn't plan to get into the wholesale business.

Although she was buying items locally for The Cellar, it wasn't open for business yet. She would need to hire another worker, and she still didn't have much stock down there. But most people so far were interested in selling, not shopping downstairs.

"Hey Clare." The clerk Sandy, who'd bought one of the first Sears kit houses, knocked on Clare's office door and went in when Clare unlocked it. Clare didn't like people walking in on her and on very busy days like today she locked the door to the store, as well as the back door to the alley. "Some guy was in here asking about that helmet you wore on Memorial Day. He wanted to know if it was for sale."

"Oh really? Is he still here?"

"I'm not sure. It's so crowded, I'll have to take a look around."

"Well, if you see him, tell him it's not for sale."

"OK."

A little later Sandy came back and said, "That guy asked me if he could just look at the helmet. He wants to take a closer look."

"No. Is he still here?"

"I dunno."

"I'll be wearing it in the parade again, and he can see it there. But you don't have to tell him that."

"I wonder how he knew about the helmet anyway."

"He must have seen it at the Memorial Day parade."

"Maybe, but he didn't look familiar. Not from around here."

"Then he must have seen the photo in the newspaper. I think the story was picked up by some other papers, maybe because I mentioned that I found it in the trash in Akron."

"Yeah, I guess."

The helmet was locked in the elevator again, and Clare had the only key. She figured she ought to get a spare key made and put it in the safe deposit box, but the hardware store was closed and she'd have to wait till tomorrow. She detached it from her keyring and hung it on a ribbon around her neck. She couldn't have said why she felt so leery about that helmet and the guy who was asking about it, but she took comfort from the fact that Clench would be in the parade and in the park for the evening. Maybe she could ask him for an armed escort to return the helmet to the elevator till the bank opened in the morning.

Roxy accompanied Clare once again in the back of the truck on the aluminum foil-wrapped hay bales while Jim drove. A slight breeze threatened to blow out the candles but they kept burning till the parade scattered at the park.

"This helmet hot and heavy," Clare said. "I think I'll lock it in the truck."

"Everyone wants to see it up close, though," Roxy said.

"OK, I'll walk around for a few minutes then I have to take it off."

While Jim parked the truck, Clare and Roxy walked around the park as people walked up to them for a closer look at the helmet.

"Oh, guess what I've got in my purse, Roxy, a candle snuffer. Someone brought it in for The Cellar. You can do the honors." Clare carefully felt in her bag without bending over or tilting her head, and brought out a long brass candle snuffer and handed it to Roxy. "I think it's time to extinguish my lights."

Roxy smothered each candle and gave the snuffer back to Clare.

"That's great," she said. "Now you don't have to find a really tall person to blow them out."

On Memorial Day Clare had sat down so Roxy could blow out the candles.

"Yeah, I'm going to keep the snuffer in my bag, at least every time I wear the helmet. I guess I could use it as a candelabra on a table at home."

"Why not? It would be..."

Before Roxy finished her sentence, someone squeezed through the crowd, snatched the helmet from Clare's head, and ran away. They both screamed.

Some of the crowd started to run after the snatcher, among them Clench Bargo, still in his Army uniform. The thief was impeded by the crush of people and Clench reached him quickly with long strides. He had to make a quick decision: secure the helmet or the thief? Or could he do both? He sensed that Clare would prefer the helmet, but he got a grip on the helmet's spike and the thief's arm that encircled the helmet. Clare and Roxy caught up with him and Clare managed to take the helmet while Clench held on to the boy with his powerful grip.

Meanwhile, Jim had returned from parking the truck, heard the commotion, and run over to the center of the crowd wielding his camera.

"Hey, that's the guy I saw in front of the store with the hoodie!" Jim yelled. Clench turned toward Jim, while the boy was swearing and trying to twist out of his grip. Or at least he seemed to be swearing, but not in language that Clare understood. She just understood the tone of voice and the expression on his face. Clench stared at the kid with what seemed to be recognition. He said something to the boy that Clare did not understand and at this, the boy look startled and with one more determined effort, bit Clench's knuckles, wrenched himself away, and took off running, Clench at his heels.

"Get Sheriff Matheson!" he yelled as he tried to catch up with the boy, who was fast and small and could move through the crowd more easily than the big man.

Clare just stood frozen to the spot holding the helmet and watched them run out of the park. Some people were looking for the sheriff but no one knew where he was after the parade. He was also a vet and had marched in his Army uniform, but someone thought he'd gone to his office to change into something lighter and cooler.

"I wouldn't lock that thing in the truck tonight," Roxy said to Clare.

"No, I guess that wouldn't be a good idea. I'll put it back in the elevator. Right now. Want to go with me?"

"Sure, let's make it quick in case he comes back."

"He won't be coming back very soon with Clench after him." But privately Clare wondered how he'd managed to lose the boy. She felt disappointed, though that wasn't fair considering he'd saved her helmet.

They told Jim where they were going and he walked with them to store.

"I think this elevator is as secure as anyplace, next to the bank, and I can't get there till tomorrow."

"You sure wouldn't want to take it home," said Jim.

"No."

"You'll be glad to know I got more pictures."

"Maybe the sheriff can send them around for identification. We do know he's..."

"Not from around here," Roxy and Jim finished with her.

# Chapter 9: Lock, Stock, And Gun Barrels

The morning after the Fourth, Clare called the sheriff's office.

"Hi, this is Clare Bower down at The Rag and Bone Shop."

"Hey there," Sheriff Matheson said. "You put on quite a show for us yesterday."

"More than I planned," she said. "I know this is asking a lot, but I have that helmet locked up here and I want to just put it back in the bank safe deposit box, but I'm kind of afraid to walk down the block with it, even if I put it in a bag. Would it be possible for you or someone to, uh, give me an escort? I know it's an imposition. Actually I feel kind of stupid."

"That's quite all right. Clench is here this morning and it won't take but a few minutes. He'll be right along, won't you, Clench?"

Clench was at the shop in a flash, as it seemed to Clare.

"Hi! Thank you so much. Just let me get this thing out of the elevator and put it in a bag... I won't keep you long."

"Your taxes at work. And it is a police matter now."

"I didn't see you again after you took off after that guy last night. Did you catch him?"

"No, but we got an ID. Yesterday morning Sheriff Matheson sent the other deputy to all the parking lots around town and told him to look for a license plate covered with mud. A lot of times, of course, the farmers' trucks are all muddy but we haven't had any rain for a while so there shouldn't be much mud, especially if it's just on the plate and not on the wheels or vehicle. So the sheriff told him to look for something like that and clean it off and write down the number and the car model and so on."

"Did he find anything?"

"Yep. An out of county car, a blue Ford Escort, real clean except for muddy plates. In fact the front plate was missing. Technically you're supposed to have two plates on your car, in Ohio, but sometimes the front of a car isn't made to hold a plate so nobody pays any attention to that, but this Escort had a place to mount a plate in the front but only had a plate on the back."

"So did you track it?"

"Yeah. It's from Akron. Registered to Mohammed Ebrahim."

Clare stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and stared at Clench.

"Did I tell you where I got this helmet?"

"No."

She told him.

"Now, it really was put out for trash pickup because everyone had stuff on the curb that day. It's the monthly large item pickup in that neighborhood. I did not steal that helmet."

"I didn't think you did. But that kid wants it, and someone else wanted to get rid of it."

"Did you contact this Mohammed Ebrahim yet?"

"No. The sheriff is thinking about it. The car wasn't reported stolen. Maybe it's his dad's car. He should be told what the boy is up to, of course. Maybe he can explain it. But the sheriff doesn't want to arrest the kid. So far he hasn't done any real harm. Besides make you nervous, which we don't want." Clench smiled at her.

Clare smiled back.

"Well, I'm not inclined to give the helmet back. But I'm even more curious about it now."

"The sheriff is considering whether to call this Ebrahim or send somebody up to talk with him in person. And the boy. Semi-unofficially."

"Hmm. Could I go along? I would not take the helmet," Clare said emphatically.

"We'll see."

They got the helmet safely deposited in its box, and walked back to the store.

"That concealed carry class is this Saturday, right?"

"Yeah. You planning to sign up? We have a few other people registered. It will be a small group."

"Do I sign up at the sheriff's office?"

"Sure, come on back with me and get 'er done."

"I will. I think those guns might be delivered from Sears today."

"OK. I'll stop by this afternoon."

"Wait a minute — ," Clare put her hand on his arm as he started to walk away. "What did that kid say to you when you grabbed him? And then you said something to him. What language were you speaking?"

"Persian. Also called Farsi. He was swearing, and I was swearing. Son of a dog, things like that."

"So, he's Persian? I mean, Iranian?"

"Apparently. We were both surprised."

"I was trying to find out something about that helmet online, and I got the idea that it was Persian armor, or Indo-Persian, they call it."

"There's a mosque in Akron," Clench said, more to himself than to Clare.

Jackson came in with one of his trucks and delivered the four guns Clare had ordered, among other items for the store. The truck was full, though Clare had gotten over the urge to order everything possible, before it all disappeared. Unless she planned to go into the mail order business herself, she'd best confine her business to the store space she, and her small staff, could personally manage.

When Jackson came in, Clare repressed the small pang she always felt on seeing him. She felt that they had an almost magical connection, but he still would not really talk to her. She'd also gotten over the urge to press him for information about the source of the Sears stock, but aside from what seemed to be meaningful eye contact, they hadn't really gotten much closer after his appearance at Aunt Adela's funeral. But she shook it off and started unpacking.

"Unpacking, that's good, huh?" she said to Jackson. "I'm unpacking so I can be packing. I'm taking a concealed carry class tomorrow. Get it?"

Jackson smiled and nodded. Clare couldn't tell if he got it or not.

"You do a lot of traveling, carrying valuables. Do you carry a gun?"

"No. I don't need to."

Clare looked puzzled at this but decided that, based on all her experience with Jackson, it wasn't worth the trouble trying to get him to elaborate, elucidate, or answer simple yes or no questions. She watched him drive away with a sigh, and went into her office to open the boxes of guns. She'd ordered from the 1902 Sears catalogue, with no input from anyone, so her choices might not have been the best. But the prices were so low that it would be no problem to buy new ones if Clench told her not to use these, though she had chosen the most expensive models in the catalogue.

The shotgun was an L. C. Smith Breech Loader. Was there another way to load, Clare wondered. The one she bought cost $77.62, the special high grade 12-gauge:

"... fine 4-blade Damascus steel barrels, fine English walnut stock, finely checkered grip and fore end, rubber butt plate, case hardened locks, frame and breech handsomely engraved and finely finished in 12-gauge."

That's a lot of fineness, Clare thought, considering she didn't know what all those specs meant. But she'd learn. The special order she bought added about $10 to the cost and provided an automatic ejector, whatever that was.

As for the rifles, she recognized the name Winchester, and thought the 30-Caliber Army Box Magazine Sporting Rifle sounded good, at $17.82. But she had also bought an oddball Improved Quackenbush Bicycle Rifle for $3.65. It had a little steel handle and a long barrel, coming to 27 inches total length, or 16 inches closed, though she couldn't tell how it closed.

"... all steel... can be used either as a rifle or pistol.... The skeleton stock can be moved in and out quickly.... Weight, 31 ounces."

Sounded like a deal.

There were ladies' revolvers and vest pocket revolvers and one with a bayonet. The Colt Special Pearl Handle Revolver had an ox head carved on it. The Smith & Wesson Military and Police Revolver seemed like a good bet, but she had chosen the Colt Pearl Handle with a 7-1/2 inch barrel for $22, plus a little Remington Derringer with a 3-inch barrel, total length 5 inches, for $6.35 with a blued barrel and pearl handle (extra).

To round off her collection she'd bought a Colt Automatic Pistol for $18.50 — eight shots in one second, with a 500 to 1,000 yard range.

She'd had the forethought to order ammunition to fit all these firearms, and felt prepared, except that the 1902 catalogue had featured no gun safes, so she planned to buy a new one, or rather, one from a local store. But she intended to shop for holsters and any implements that might be required to care for a gun. And there were some nice shell bags and cases, and a tooled leather Cowboy Holster, and a Texas Shoulder Holster. Too much fun.

Meanwhile, everything went into the elevator.

As for the purchases for The Rag and Bone Shop, this time she'd focused on cameras, telegraph instruments, talking machines, graphophones, stereopticons, magic lanterns, slides (Spanish-American War, Noted Places Around the World, Old and New Testament Bible Views, The Passing of the Indian, etc.), and a piano and an organ.

# Chapter 10: Cafe Society

Clare didn't see Clench for a few days. She figured he was at the farm, working with his dad. Eventually she found him at the cafe again, eating breakfast.

"So how's it going?" he asked.

"Everything's fine. Except that I want to find out more about the boy who tried to snatch the helmet. Actually I know you have his address in Akron, and I want to go up there and talk to him, and his family."

"Well, we can't just hand out information like that to the public."

"You forgot that I found the helmet and I remember where. I can find the house again. It would be helpful if I had the name of the people who live there, and any information you might have about them. Like, should I take the concealed carry class first and then go up to Akron packing?" Clare said impudently.

"Please don't even think about doing that."

"So they're not a gang of dangerous criminals, or a jihad cell?"

At this Clench raised his eyebrows but said nothing. He was beginning to believe that when Clare got an idea in her head, she would not be stopped. Hard headed. Just like his mom. Clare wondered why his crooked smile appeared again.

"I think I'll get my friend Roxy to get the street address for me. She was with me when I found the trunk with the helmet in it. She could probably get the names too, and maybe a phone number. And I will write a polite letter first."

"I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know... if you get an answer, and if and when you plan to go up there."

"OK. I can do that much. Uh, you know I do appreciate you grabbing that guy and rescuing the helmet."

"Just doing my job."

"One of them. How's the vineyard coming along?"

"Oh, well, we're working on an irrigation system now. Actually it'll be a couple of years at least before we get a usable harvest. So we're buying grapes just to learn how to make wine."

"Are you stomping them barefoot?"

"No, I'm just beating the hell out of them with my fists. It's therapeutic."

They both laughed.

A few days later Clare found him in the cafe again and told him she was sending a letter to the family.

"Named Ebrahim, right?" Clare asked. "Roxy Barbarino got me the information."

"Yeah, that's the name. Did she tell you anything else?"

"She said the father died this spring, Mohammed Ebrahim, and had two children, a son and a daughter. The son is named Ali. The girl is named Adeleh. Which is weird, because my aunt was named Adela. I looked them up. My aunt's name means 'noble' but the Persian name means 'just' or 'equal', something like that. Oh, and Ali means 'high'."

"But did you know the mother's name is Jennifer? She's American."

"I didn't know that. Roxy said her name was Jannat."

"Which means 'Paradise'. She probably changed it when she married Ebrahim."

"Hm. Well, considering that he's dead, I'll rewrite the letter, to Mrs. Ebrahim. Wonder if I should address her as Jennifer or Jannat?"

"You could always just go with 'J'."

"Anyway, I explained how I found the helmet, and that someone tried to steal it, and we think it's someone from her family. Or from her house. I tried to make it clear that I found it in the trash and want to keep it, but I'd like to know why it was thrown out. And what the history of it is. It's possible that one of the kids threw it out and the mom didn't know about it."

"That doesn't seem likely. It's the kid who showed up here. I wonder how he knew it was here, though. He would have had to get your license plate number when you picked up the trunk, and track your address."

"There was that newspaper story too, but that appeared in our paper, and the Akron paper, after the first time he was in town, at least we think it was him. So he traced the license plate number or followed me, but he would have had to hang around where I stayed and where I went till I drove back to Greenline."

"As I said, keep me posted about what you hear from them, if anything. We contacted Akron and Summit County law enforcement, but they don't have anything on Ali, and we didn't want to pursue it. I assume you didn't plan to press charges. Attempted robbery or something."

"No, no. I just want to find out about that helmet. Don't look so worried," Clare said. "He's harmless. He was just prowling around and tried to snatch the helmet, no weapons or anything."

"In my experience teenagers from Iran are not guaranteed harmless. And you're the one buying the guns."

"Yeah, I guess I am."

Later that week Clare found Clench in the cafe again. He'd think I was stalking him except that I have to eat anyway, she thought. And just about everyone who works in town eats here too.

"Hey, Clench. Anything good on the menu today? Is the chef in good form?"

"Well, he's consistent. It's all good."

Clare ordered coffee and a BLT, and promised the waitress, Jeanette, that she'd order pie later.

"They make their own pies and I think they get discouraged if you don't order them once in a while," she observed to Clench.

"Well, you don't want them to give up on it."

"I always wonder why the menu says the chicken salad is 'seasonal'," Clare said. "Like lobster. Are they wild chickens that just fly in once in a while or what?"

Clench laughed.

"I guess the old boys who come in for lunch don't like to eat chicken salad in the winter," he said.

"The ways of your people are strange. Anyway, I got a letter back from Mrs. Ebrahim."

"No... kidding!" Clench said.

"She said she did throw out the trunk and she didn't want it back, or anything in it. Of course the helmet was the only thing in it. And no one in her house has been out of town or would try to steal it, she said. As far as she knows. I'd asked if the helmet was valuable or of historic interest and she said it's of no value to her, and she doesn't know how old it is. But she has to know something more, or the son does. I still want to talk to her. I could try to find out more about it online or maybe even at a mosque, but that wouldn't explain about the boy trying to steal it."

"I wouldn't get involved with any mosques."

"What if Ali stole it?"

"Like the Ali Babas?" Clench said.

"Yeah."

"Well, suppose he stole it, from someone he knew or from a mosque and his mother was afraid to return it."

"The police and sheriff's offices up there didn't mention any thefts up there when we told them about the helmet."

"I'm going to write to her again but I won't say I'm making a special trip. That would make her nervous. I'll just say I'd like to meet her next time I go up to visit my parents."

"She's probably already nervous. The police questioned her about Ali, but they got nothing."

"There are the photos, though, that Jim Rainbolt took."

"Yeah, we know it was him but since nobody is pressing charges, nothing is going to happen. I mean, there are things we could charge him with but it's just not that important."

"Anyway I told her the helmet is in a bank vault," Clare said, "and I'm sure she's talked to her son about it, and my letter, so that should keep him from trying it again. He's really not going to try to rob a bank, even if he was scratching around the back door in the alley."

"Maybe he thinks a pressure cooker bomb would do it," Clench said.

Clare looked startled.

"Would it?"

"I don't know about the bank vault but it wouldn't do anybody any good. Of course maybe he would want to avoid damaging the helmet."

# Chapter 11: Concealed Carry

Clare brought the two Colts to the concealed carry class, the pearl handled revolver and the automatic. Clench examined them with great interest.

"I never saw these before," he said. "They look like they've never been used but they've got to be old." He looked puzzled.

"Well, you've been in my store. You know I sell new antiques. You'll have to come by the store and see the other ones I bought. I'm not going to take them home till I get a gun safe."

"Good idea. Well, if they were really antiques I might be worried about safety but they look all right. But if you want to buy something more up to date, like a Glock, let me know and we'll talk about it."

"OK. But I got these really cheap."

.........................................................................................

The class involved more learning about the laws than shooting. Clare learned that open carry is legal in Ohio, but you'd better not do it. It could be considered brandishing.

"It took me ages to get it through my head that you can't carry an open can of beer in the car. So I'm not about to walk around with a gun showing," she said.

Clench advised the class to go to a shooting range occasionally, for practice, in order to get comfortable if not skillful with their firearms. Some of the students had always lived in the country and were hunters, and mainly wanted to refresh their knowledge of the law, but several were like Clare, inexperienced and bone ignorant.

"I can practice with the guns at the range, but mostly I'm worried about breaking the law," she said.

"Well, just study your book there, and get to know a good lawyer," Clench replied, smiling. "Just remember, your goal is to protect yourself."

.........................................................................

# Chapter 12: The Long Arms of the Law

Clare found herself postponing the opening of The Cellar. She was still buying things from the locals and arranging them downstairs, and people were asking when it would open, but somehow she didn't feel ready. She liked being able to lock things in the elevator. She hadn't brought out the Persian helmet again since the Fourth, and she could lock things in her office, though it didn't seem as secure, with a window facing the back alley. Could she open the old staircase down to The Cellar? She'd probably run up against regulations for handicapped access, with no elevator, although she could always close The Cellar for business temporarily if she absolutely needed to lock something in the elevator.

But that was not important. She would feel unsettled till she went to Akron and met with Mrs. Ebrahim. Why that should make a difference with The Cellar she couldn't say (when talking to herself), but it made her feel mentally untidy.

She made a couple of phone calls, and told Clench she was, at last, going up to Akron for a couple of days, to meet the woman.

He was silent for a minute.

"You know, I'd like to go with you."

"Oh no, I'm not bringing the law in."

"I wouldn't be going as the law. No, that's wrong, I'm always the law. But I'd go along unofficially and not wear my uniform."

"No, I wouldn't feel comfortable talking to her with you there, or anyone else. I'm not even bringing Roxy and she wanted to go because she's always looking for a new story."

"I could just be around nearby in case of trouble."

"What trouble?"

"That's just it. You don't know."

"No."

"Now that you've got your permit and all, I suppose you're going to take one of those little pop guns?"

Clare didn't answer.

"When are you leaving?"

She didn't answer again.

"I can find out at the store. Listen, you've got brass... uh, brass. I admire that. But if you think you're only going to be chatting with the widow Ebrahim, I think you're mistaken. Do you think she won't tell her kids, and friends, and everyone in the mosque, that you're going to be there?"

"So? I don't even have to go to her house. I could ask her to meet me for coffee someplace."

"Yeah, that might be better."

"Are you staying at your parents' house?"

Clare gave an exasperated sigh.

"Yes."

"Good. You got GPS on your phone?"

"Yes, but I'm hardly likely to get lost going up to Akron."

"Just make sure it's on."

"Let's sync your GPS to my phone."

"What!"

"Seriously. I think there's more going on with this kid and this helmet than you know. I don't know what it is, but this is not something to play around with. I don't want you to get yourself into trouble, I just want to be nearby. I won't interfere with your meeting. And besides, I'm curious myself."

Clare gave up. She trusted him. Roxy took her boyfriend, Jim Rainbolt, along on various adventures, as a photographer as well as moral support. Clare was used to doing everything alone, and she liked it. But it might be nice to have friend. And, she considered, as a practical matter, Clench as an assistant deputy had access to sources of information that she, and even Roxy, as a reporter, did not.

Clare was beginning to get the idea that Clench wasn't just a conscientious part-time lawman. He seemed to feel protective of her personally. The idea of that was pleasing, but in practice, she discovered, it could be irritating. And it wasn't as if they'd had even one date.

Clench drove up to her house Saturday morning and Clare invited him in.

"You want some breakfast?"

"No, thanks, I already ate."

"Well, I plan on eating lunch at my parents', and you're welcome too. I told them you were coming. You can even stay in their guest room."

"I appreciate that. I'd be glad to have lunch with you, but I'll find a place to stay."

"Suit yourself."

"I'm going to meet Mrs. Ebrahim this afternoon."

Clare locked up and they got on the road, Clench's black Ford F-250 following Clare's silver F-150.

Clare's parents came out to the driveway to greet them.

"Hello, honey," her mother said, hugging her. Her dad gave Clench a firm handshake.

"Clench, Nicole and Bill Bower, my parents. Clench Bargo."

"How are you, Clench?" her father said.

"Fine, nice to meet you both."

"So, did you have a good drive up here? No rain or anything? Come on in, lunch is ready," Nicole said, bustling them inside.

Lunch was full of casual chit-chat, but Clare knew that her parents were speculating about Clench.

"So, what brings you up to visit this time?" her mom asked.

"Well, you remember I told you about that helmet I found on trash day, last time I was up here. It's so unusual and interesting, I just want to talk to the people who threw it out. You know, maybe I'll find out something about its history, and why they tossed it out. I mean, who would throw away something so neat?"

"You said you thought it was a Persian helmet?" Bill asked.

"Well, going by what I could find on the Internet, yes, I think so."

"Persia. That's Iran."

"Yeah."

"So maybe they're Iranians."

"After I meet them I'll tell you everything I find out. Actually I'm meeting a Mrs. Ebrahim, at Starbucks."

"You too, Clench?"

"No-o-o, I'm, uh, I have some other business in Akron. Just thought I'd come along..."

"Not for the ride, since you have your own ride. That an F-250?"

"Yes, it is."

"Pretty heavy duty."

"I work on my parents' farm and need it."

"Ah! What kind of farming do you do?"

"Corn, some cows. But we're planting a vineyard now. It won't be ready for two–three years."

"Interesting. You're welcome to stay here tonight. We have a guest room."

"That's OK. I don't want to impose. I'll get a room. You know, I'll be coming and going. It's enough that you invited me to lunch."

"Well, come back tomorrow for Sunday dinner."

Clench nodded.

Clare didn't have to look at her parents to know that while they wouldn't be so rude as to exchange meaningful glances over the table, they were mentally doing so, and evaluating Clench as a potential mate.

She sighed very quietly.

"You sound tired, honey," Nicole said.

"Well, the drive tired me out a little."

"If you want a hotel, Clench," Bill continued, "the Quaker Inn downtown is nice. Rooms built into the old grain silos, used to be the Quaker Oats factory. But it's a little pricey. If you get a cheaper place downtown — I suggest you don't. You have to go back down the highway a few miles to get something tolerable."

"The Quaker Inn sounds good. Just for one night."

Bill looked as if he was satisfied that Clench wasn't crying poor.

"Did you recommend that Clare get that F-150?"

"Oh no. She did that on her own. Coincidence. They're pretty popular down there."

"Sure, a reliable truck. Solid."

After a couple minutes of silence, Bill said, "Clare, did you bring that helmet with you? I'd like to see it."

"No, sorry, I didn't."

"So you're not planning to give it back to this Iranian woman."

"No. Actually, she's not Iranian, she married a man from Iran. But he's dead."

"How do you know that?"

"Uh, I'll tell you about it later. But it's about time I headed out for Starbucks. You know the one not far from here. It's about halfway between here and her house."

Clare and Clench walked out together and her parents watched them from the door, wondering what Clench was saying to her. He almost seemed about to put his arms around her, but instead he put on his hat and got in his truck.

# Chapter 13: Mrs. Ebrahim

Mrs. Ebrahim was easy to pick out in Starbucks. She didn't have a laptop. She did have a hijab. Clare was thankful only her hair was covered. She didn't know if she could bring herself to make conversation with someone whose face was covered.

Mrs. Ebrahim's face was entirely American looking, aside from the headscarf framing it, and she wore ordinary American clothes. Clare thought she probably had blonde hair. Her blues eyes looked strained. She was thin, and looked around 40.

"Hello, Mrs. Ebrahim. I'm Clare Bower. Thanks for meeting with me," Clare said, sitting in one of the comfortable leather chairs next to a small table. "Can I get you a coffee?"

"No thanks, not now."

"I'll just go order mine. Paying rent for the chairs, you know," Clare said smiling as she got up.

She ordered the most frou-frou drink she could find on the Starbucks menu, all frozen chocolate froth and whipped cream. A plain coffee wouldn't set the right tone. Too serious and off-putting, too formal, might make the woman nervous. More nervous. She bought a couple of cookies too.

"Have a cookie?" she said, placing everything on the little table.

"No, no, thanks."

"So are you from Akron?" Clare asked. "I am. I grew up here, and went to Akron U."

"Yes, so did I. That's where I met my husband."

"He died, didn't he? Not long ago. I am sorry."

"How do you know that?"

"The truth is, when your son Ali showed up in Greenline a couple of times and then tried to snatch the helmet, the police tracked him down through the license plate on the car, and somehow found out some things. I don't know what sources they have, but of course they got in touch with the Akron and Summit County law."

Mrs. Ebrahim did not look shocked or angry. She looked resigned.

Clare continued, "As I wrote you in my letter, I found the helmet in a trunk on the curb on large object trash pickup day. Everybody had big items out on the curb, and nobody thinks anything of people taking them. It's sort of an old custom here."

"Yes, I know."

"But obviously someone wanted to throw out the helmet, or at least the trunk, and someone wanted the helmet back. I want to keep the helmet, unless there's been some mistake about it being thrown out."

"No, there was no mistake. I put it out."

She was silent for a moment. Clare drank her coffee. She'd asked for two extra shots of espresso to counteract all the sugar. She'd have to counteract the caffeine with extra wine tonight at Roxy's.

"But your son must feel some attachment to it."

"It was his father's. From his father's family, that is. It's quite old."

"It's from Iran?"

"Yes."

"I did a little research on the web. It seemed to resemble other helmets identified as Indo-Persian. But they were all a little different. Definitely not mass produced."

"Yes, that's right."

"So you don't feel that same attachment to an heirloom from your husband's family? Perhaps one of his relatives would want it."

"I'd just as soon see it melted down for scrap," the woman said vehemently.

Clare was stunned.

"Well, you could have done that, of course, and your son wouldn't have been able to... follow it."

"I guess I thought it would go in a landfill and no one would ever see it again."

Clare wondered if Mrs. Ebrahim's hostility had to do with a bitter marriage. But this was not something she could ask. Yet.

"Um, are you — did you throw out other things? Antiques, or your husband's things?"

"I gave his clothes to charity, except the ones my son could wear. He's quite a bit taller than his father was, though. I got rid of a lot of books."

Clare thought she could ask leading questions indefinitely, until Mrs. Ebrahim decided to go home, but it was hard to tell whether or not she was looking for someone to unload on. Roxy had told her that she often got more from an interview subject by waiting. Sympathetically, of course. And Clare did feel sympathetic. There was something simmering below the woman's constrained surface, but she didn't seem hostile toward Clare. If she had been, she wouldn't have agreed to meet her.

"This coffee is starting to kick in," Clare said lightly. "I read that a few Starbucks around the country are adding wine to their menu. I think I'm going to want some after all this caffeine. But that's like putting on the gas and the brakes at the same time. My heart or head might explode."

"I don't drink alcohol. I gave it up when I married Mohammed."

"Ah. So you converted."

Mrs. Ebrahim made a sound that could have been a laugh.

"Well, I was raised a Christian. I never said absolutely, or thought, that I gave it up, but I went along with him to a degree. It was more important to him than to me, and I agreed to raise our children as Muslims."

"So... you go to the mosque?"

"I did. Ali still does. My daughter does not."

Now we're getting somewhere, Clare thought.

"How long were you married?"

"Nineteen years. Got married right after graduating from Akron U. Well, he went on to grad school to get an MBA. I got a job in an office, and when Mo started his business, I went to work there."

"Is your family still in Akron? I mean your parents?"

"My father died but my mom still lives here. Mohammed's parents are still in Iran. He has brothers and sisters but they're still over there too. But what you want to know is about the helmet. As I said, it's an old family heirloom. Supposedly used in battle generations back. I don't know. Ali thinks it was."

"Well, naturally he would like to keep it. But you don't want him to." Clare said this in a neutral tone.

"It has some bad associations for me, not for him. Holy war, you know."

"No, I don't really."

"It's always a holy war," she said bitterly.

Clare hesitated. "To throw it out — such a beautiful object — you didn't want to sell it, or send it back to Iran?"

Mrs. Ebrahim seemed to compose herself again.

"No. I didn't want my son to think it was available. I never thought he'd go to such lengths to try to find it. I'm sorry for the trouble he caused for you, and the police."

"The police don't really want to get him into any real trouble, or arrest him. He's just a kid, no record, it's really fairly trivial."

Mrs. Ebrahim leaned forward and said very clearly, staring into Clare's eyes, "He is not just a kid anymore. He's 19, and is capable of doing something worse than trying to steal that helmet. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is just 19, you know."

Clare gasped. "Are you saying Ali might do something like the Boston Marathon bombing? Of course the teen years aren't easy, and, uh, he must be quite disturbed about his father's death. Do you really have reason to suspect..."

"Not yet. He... he sees this helmet as a symbol of his father, his Iranian heritage, his Muslim heritage. He wants to... immerse himself in it even more now that... his father is gone. He is at the mosque all the time. Some of the men there are trying to step into his father's shoes. But I don't want that. I don't trust them. Ali thought Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his brother were heroes, and some of the people in the mosque agreed with him. At least, no one really spoke out against it."

"But it looks like you are part of it. I mean, you're wearing the headscarf."

# Chapter 14: The Scarf Comes Off

Mrs. Ebrahim reached up and pulled off her scarf.

"I've been waiting to do that for months," she said, exhaling slowly, as if she'd been holding her breath for months.

Clare instinctively looked around the coffee shop as if the sharia police would rush in and grab the woman. The woman's hair was blonde, as she'd thought.

"To become a Muslim you have to pronounce that you believe in Allah and so on, in Arabic. I never actually did that, not in public or in private. No one can say I did. I accommodated my husband as much as possible, but saying I was a monotheist was about as far as I could go. I used to think Allah just meant god, and we all believe in one god, so it's the same. But it's not the same. Since I didn't make that statement I'm not technically an apostate now. At least, I don't think so. Ali will... I don't know what he'll do, actually."

"You're his mother, he loves you. He will have some sympathy, if not understanding."

"Not necessarily. He's a hard one." She was silent for a moment.

"You must think it's strange, my telling you all this when we don't know each other. All these years I've had no one to talk to. I didn't want my mother to worry. Some of the women in the mosque are very sweet, but they absolutely would not... be supportive. Some of the younger ones, maybe, but not the married ones, not the ones my age, even if they're American. And all my old friends from before, Americans, from before my marriage... we couldn't continue to be friends." Mrs. Ebrahim put her head in her hands, then straightened her spine again. "My daughter is just 17. I've been so worried about her. She's really an American but Ali might as well be an immigrant like his father. As long as he lived here, Mo was always a foreigner."

Clare suddenly remembered a little book she'd read as a girl, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Lovely Persian poetry, a thousand years old, but hardly Islamic, as far as she could tell. It seemed impossible to see any connection between Omar the Tentmaker and Ali Ebrahim the thief with dreams of war. Maybe that book was still in her parents' house.

But helpless pieces in the game He plays  
Upon this chequer-board of Nights and Days  
He hither and thither moves, and checks ... and slays  
Then one by one, back in the Closet lays

Perhaps that verse, which strangely lingered in her memory — certainly not the most famous or popular, no jugs of wine, loaves of bread, or singing maidens — did express a distant Allah and the irrationality of Islamic fate. She knew he wasn't the Christian god that she remembered from Sunday school.

And what about The Thousand and One Arabian Nights, where Scheherazade talked as if her life depended on it, which it did. Wonderful magical stories, not like Mrs. Ebrahim's sad and somehow banal tale. But was it banal, a common story of marital disappointment? Clare still had a feeling there was more behind what the woman told her, more than the blinding romance of a college girl, aged to maturity and bitter knowledge. Perhaps her story-telling would destroy her life, not save it.

What Clare knew of the Muslim world of recent years could not furnish romance for a typical moony teenager, though maybe it did for the boy Ali. And she knew from the news that murderous jihadists could inspire a sort of romance in the madwomen who paraded in front of the Boston courthouse protesting the innocence of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev — a misunderstood boy who was too cute to have killed innocent people at the Marathon, and then a policeman, before running over his own brother.

Love, romance, idealism, beauty, poetry — suddenly she thought of Jackson, the evanescent.

"Excuse me, Mrs. Ebrahim, what were you saying?"

"Both of my children had American friends and did most of the things that American kids do, although maybe we were stricter than most parents here. They went to the mosque but mostly socialized with the kids they went to school with, public schools in Akron. While my daughter wanted more freedom, her father tried to put pressure on her to make her more like an Iranian girl. No dating, but he talked about arranging a marriage for her with some Iranian man. My son started to gravitate toward what he saw as increasing power for himself as a Muslim man."

"Power? How do you mean?"

"Well, in the family, really. Over me and his sister. Telling even me what was proper and so on. I had adapted a great deal over the years to Mo's expectations but I was starting to want to revert a bit to — well, American ways. Wanted to be a little more independent, in a mild way. So in the last few years, family life was rather tense."

"I can imagine." Clare could almost imagine. Her own family had its tensions, but the normal American kind. Her parents were comfortable together.

Mrs. Ebrahim seemed to suddenly shake herself out of her memories, and looked at Clare.

"Well, anyway, I wanted, I want to change the house. I cannot continue living between worlds. They are too different. I've gotten in touch with a few of my old American friends, and I'm spending more time with my parents and other relatives. I'm making a lot of changes. Ali doesn't like it and he questions my authority, as I suppose most teenagers will. But he thinks he has the force of the entire Muslim world behind him. Maybe he does. So, that's why I threw out the helmet and why I don't want it back in my house. He almost feels like it has magic power," she sighed. "Maybe I should have gotten him a dog. But Mo didn't like dogs."

Despite this deluge of confession, Clare still believed there was more that the woman wasn't telling her. In her experience the average American woman would tell you her whole life within minutes of being introduced, but this felt a little different. This woman had been somewhat de-Americanized, and it was possible that she had more than emotional family secrets to tell.

"Maybe you saw the story in the Akron Beacon Journal about the helmet. I wore it, with candles, at the Fourth of July parade in Greenline, where I live, and at the Memorial Day parade before that. It was sensational," Clare smiled. "There was a story about it in the local paper, and the Beacon Journal picked up the story, and a friend of mine, who writes for a magazine here in Akron, wrote about it. So a lot of people know about it now and are interested in it, as an antique."

"Yes, we saw the story, and I must say Ali was enraged, especially at the photographs. He still thinks it's his."

"Did your husband give it to him?"

"No. It belonged to me now, just because I inherited as his wife. Nothing specifically went to the children."

"I expect Ali to come to Greenline again, to try to steal the helmet again," Clare said, looking expectantly at Mrs. Ebrahim.

"Probably," she said.

"Now, it's locked in a bank vault. It won't be in my home or in my store," she emphasized. "Your son was seen in the alley behind our bank but got scared away. Do you think he'd be crazy enough to try to rob a bank vault? That would be even harder than robbing a bank for cash."

"Well, he might. Honestly, he's not, um, brilliant. He's all emotion. And he has friends, who think the same as him. From the mosque. Maybe they give him ideas. I think... I think there's a group of people in the mosque who have jihadist ideas. They think they're going to bring sharia to Ohio."

"Really!" Clare was alarmed, and showed it. After all, she'd hardly remembered Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's name, just a few months after the Boston Marathon bombing, but his name had rolled off Mrs. Ebrahim's tongue. She was paying attention.

"Really. I am watching."

"But since you're not going to the mosque anymore..."

"True. I do talk to one person there sometimes, on the phone."

"I thought you said you didn't have anyone to talk to."

"Well, I don't talk about my problems. This person talks to me."

# Chapter 15: Another Cup of Coffee

"You know, I think I will have some coffee," Mrs. Ebrahim said.

"Sure, let me get it for you. What kind do you want?"

"Oh, whatever you had. I'm not in the habit of coming to Starbucks and I'm not familiar with the menu."

"This is very sweet."

"That's fine. Cookie?"

"No, thanks."

While Clare ordered and waited for the drinks, she wondered where to go next in this rambling interview. She hadn't asked some of the more obvious questions. In some ways Starbucks wasn't the ideal place for an interview or private conversation, it was small and public, but on the other hand, it was always noisy with grinders and blenders, which could conceal conversation. Maybe she should have gone to the independent coffee shop just across the street, which was also busy and noisy, but Starbucks had more comfortable chairs. She carried the drinks over to their little table.

"Thank you so much. I am getting thirsty. And... may I call you Clare?"

"Of course."

"Call me Jennifer."

Clare nodded, noting that she offered her American name. Of course her car was registered in that name, so presumably she'd never legally changed it to the Persian name Jannat.

"What are your children doing this summer now that school's out, Jennifer?"

"Ali — well, you know he's making trouble. But he goes to various activities at the mosque, and is taking a class at Akron U. He will be a sophomore in the fall. From what he tells me, some of the professors, Americans, talk about politics in class and seem to be rather anti-American. Not just anti-government or against this administration. It doesn't help."

"And your daughter?"

"She's staying with relatives. My relatives. In another state."

"A summer vacation?"

"No, I sent her there when my husband died."

"That's was just this spring, right?"

"Yes."

Clare waited.

"She'll be a junior in high school this fall."

"You must miss her. Or were you having teenage troubles with her too, like Ali?"

"No, but as I said, her father had been getting more... demanding about things, he wanted her to give up her American friends and school activities, wear the hijab, and Ali was talking about arranging a marriage, the same one his father had started. There was a lot of fighting. When Mo went back to Iran to... for a visit, he wanted us all to go, but I wouldn't, and Adeleh stayed here with me. Ali went with him."

Clare would have interrupted to say "My aunt's name was Adela!" but kept quiet so as not to interrupt the flow.

"So Mo died over there and Ali came back, with ideas about taking over where Mo left off, I guess. In terms of being head of the family, that is. And things got so bad that I sent Adeleh off to stay with relatives, but I told Ali that she ran away. Of course he wanted to report it to the police, but I had to keep it secret. He would have been even more furious at me. So I explained to the detective that she was with relatives, and I wouldn't tell him who or where. They are relatives that Ali has never met and doesn't even know about. I hinted that Ali was abusing his sister. I'm sure they assumed it was sexual abuse, but it was not. I was vague."

"And the police let it go at that?"

"Yes. I got the impression that they'd seen similar situations before. Or worse. So, she and I have new passwords for out computer accounts, e-mail and Facebook and everything. I'm very careful. I don't even use a computer at home to communicate with her. I use the library's computers. I have no idea how long Ali could maintain this obsession. Why he won't just leave the girl alone. He thinks it's his duty."

"I hesitate to even suggest this... but I've read about so-called honor killings here in the U.S."

"Well, a few years ago there was that girl in Ohio who ran away from home. Rifqa Bary was her name. She converted to Christianity and was afraid her father would kill her. I don't know where she is now."

"Did you think your husband would have gone so far?"

"It's hard to sort out what might be possible from what is probable. Hard to know what a person really is, deep down, even after living with him for so long. And the same is true for my son. People change so much, and an emotional boy like Ali is susceptible to influences, and moods. Anyway, I want to go visit my daughter sometime. If I can get away without him knowing it. Well, here I am telling you everything, and I'm trusting you."

She looked at Clare.

"I guarantee you I won't spread this around. But if I can help you, I will."

"Just keep that helmet locked up."

"That I can do. By the way, your husband died in Iran?"

"Yes."

"How did he..."

Suddenly the door opened and someone rushed in — a young man that Clare recognized as Ali.

"What are you doing here? Where is your hijab?" he shouted at his mother, reaching for the scarf in her lap.

Both women gasped, as did just about everyone else in Starbucks.

He snatched the scarf and wrapped it around his mother's head, trying to tie it on her again, but it slipped and started to choke her. She screamed and reached for the scarf to try to loosen it. Clare jumped up and reached for the boy's hands and the scarf to pull it loose. He pushed her away and Clare lunged again, this time slapping at his hands and then his face, to distract him. Most everyone in the café was frozen, as if they didn't understand what they were seeing, but one man ran up to them and gripped Ali's arms from behind and wrenched them back.

Then Clench ran in, pulled a pair of plastic handcuffs from his pocket, and put them on Ali's wrists as the other man held on.

"Son, you're under arrest."

"Oh, no, don't arrest him!" Jennifer cried.

"Why ever not?" Clare said. "He would have choked you to death."

"I'm calling the locals, and we're going to take him downtown and talk to him. You need to come along. And Clare, you come along too, as a witness, all right?"

"Of course."

Fortunately Ali had decided not to struggle when the cuffs were on, but Clench kept a grip on him.

"Why don't you phone 911, Clare, so I can keep two hands on him?"

"I can hold on," said the man who'd pulled Ali's arms behind his back.

"I appreciate what you did, but I'm a police officer. I'd appreciate it if you'd stick around, though."

"Sure thing."

Clare dialed 911 and said someone had attacked a woman in Starbucks and tried to choke her, but he had been subdued, and a police officer arrived and needed backup. She thought that sounded pretty official.

Within a few minutes two Akron police cars pulled up and four officers came inside. Clench explained the situation as two of the Akron officers put Ali in one of their cars.

"Would you like to ride with me to the station?" Clare asked.

"No. I'm all right. If they let him go... he can come home with me," Jennifer said.

"Why don't you ride with me then?" Clench asked Clare.

"Well, OK."

They got into his truck as Jennifer Ebrahim got into her new Escalade, and followed the police cars to downtown headquarters.

"Mo Ebrahim must have done all right for himself," Clare commented.

"Yeah, he had an import business."

"So were you sitting outside all that time in your truck, watching?"

"I was in the coffee shop across the street watching. Saw the kid pull in and then I went over. He looked mad before he even got inside."

Again, Clare wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or not. He had helped her, and if it hadn't been him, she still would have needed the help of the other man who grabbed Ali's arms, or someone. She was pretty fit but not up to physical confrontation with a strong young man.

Clare gave her statement to the police, including Clench, but didn't go into detail about what Mrs. Ebrahim had told her. They probably knew most of it anyway.

"So you're not charging Ali with anything?" she asked.

"Well, his mother doesn't want to press charges, of course. We just made it clear that he can't lay hands on her. She can wear or not wear what she wants to. And if he does it again, he will be charged. If he does anything again. These little things can add up. He insisted the helmet is his, but legally it's his mother's, or was, and she was free to throw it out. Oh, and we told him to stay out of Greenline."

Later, Clench told her that the police had reminded Ali that this is, after all, America, not Iran.

"Maybe he's just psycho."

"Some things that seem psycho to us are normal in other places and, um, realities. That's what we call diversity," Clench said wryly.

"Well, the ACLU will have something to say about that, no doubt. I mean, stating the facts is no defense."

"Since he wasn't charged with anything, he didn't have the opportunity to call a lawyer, and he wasn't even in there very long. We have a little more privacy that way."

"This won't be in the paper, will it?"

"I don't know if they'll put it in the daily police report. But you know how it is, there's always someone with a cell phone camera, even a video might pop up on YouTube or something. We asked that guy who pulled Ali off his mother not to talk to reporters if anyone should get wind of it, out of consideration for his mother. I think he'll be OK. And it all happened so fast, maybe nobody got any pictures."

In the parking lot, at Clench's truck, he said, "Well, I'll drive you back to your truck."

"Oh, yeah, I almost forgot it was still at Starbucks."

"You want to get something to eat before you go back to your parents'?"

"Sure. But I'm going to my friend's house tonight. Roxy Barbarino. Then I'll go to my parents again tomorrow. You're supposed to have dinner with us, you know, before I go back to Greenline."

"Right."

"What do you call a mid-afternoon meal anyway?" Clare said. "If it's between breakfast and lunch, it's brunch. But between lunch and supper? Slunch?"

Clench laughed.

"I did get a room at the Quaker Oats hotel and they have a couple of restaurants there, if you want to go there. We're practically right there anyway."

Clare hoped he did not intend to invite her to his room. But he didn't.

# Chapter 16: Debriefing

Afterward Clare picked up a bottle of wine and went over to Roxy's apartment.

"So how was your day?" Roxy asked.

Clare told her.

"But don't write anything about this. I have a feeling there might be more of a story in the future, but meanwhile, Jennifer Ebrahim just wants to be left alone."

"All right."

"I'd like to talk to her again before I go back to Greenline tomorrow, but I don't suppose she'd want to. I did give her my phone number and e-mail and so on. Hope Ali doesn't get a hold of it. She sounds like she's pretty careful around him, though."

"Maybe she'll call you."

"I was just about to ask her how her husband died when Ali came roaring in."

"Yeah, I wonder. He couldn't have been very old. I mean, he could have been, but they went to college together, right?"

"Yes. There must have been an obit in the Beacon-Journal when he died. He was a businessman here."

"Let's look online."

They did find Mohammed Ebrahim's obituary, but it was very brief, merely reporting that he had died on a business trip to Iran, where he was born and where he still had family.

"Huh. Doesn't say if he was sick or anything. Of course they might not have gotten a full report from Iran, but it looks like Mrs. E didn't want to put much info in the paper."

"I really want to talk to her again, but I'll wait. If I don't hear from her in a couple of weeks, I'll write to her again. Apparently she gets the mail before Ali does. Maybe he's not home much. He might intercept her mail, especially from Greenline."

"Do you think he recognized you at Starbucks?"

"I don't think so. Maybe when he saw me in the helmet in Greenline he was mesmerized by the candles and didn't look at my face. And he always seems to be running away. In this case he was running toward me, toward both of us actually, but probably he just saw his mom, and that man grabbed him pretty quick. It was all so fast."

"Well, just be careful. Make sure you get that alarm system installed in your house."

"Sure. By the way, isn't Monday big item trash pickup day again?"

"Oh come on! Are you kidding?"

"Come on, let's ride around town and check it out, before the sun goes down and before we drink this wine. My mom's going to give me some things to take home tomorrow for The Cellar."

"Oh, nice. I'll ask my parents too. Tell yours I said hi."

"A pre-emptive hi back at you."

"OK, I'll drive."

"I've got a truck."

"Oh, that's right. You drive."

They cruised around for a while in the neighborhoods where the city was collecting large items that week, but found little of interest.

"Why do people throw out so much junk?" Clare asked querulously.

"You've been spoiled. Look, there's a perfectly nice wood box, looks like an old hand-made toolbox."

Clare grunted but pulled the truck over. Roxy got out, picked up the old box with fading paint, and put it in the back of the truck.

"It's empty, in case you were hoping for a magic hammer or something. Now you're only going to want treasure chests and magic lamps," she said. "Don't forget, to make money, you have to have lots and lots of lesser treasures. Or have you lost interest in making money?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I guess it's just the letdown after that huge adrenalin rush today. I think I'll just drive by the Ebrahims' house."

"Oh no you don't!"

"If they have anything on the curb I won't stop to get it."

"Then why drive by? Do you think you're going to see them sitting out on the porch drinking iced tea and waving you in? Or are you just hoping for an adrenalin flashback? Give it a rest."

"You're right. I'm not going to get anywhere doing this. Oh, look at that lamp!"

"Not a magic lamp."

Another acquisition for The Cellar. They headed back.

As they relaxed over wine and cold pizza from Roxy's father's restaurant, Clare said, "You know, Clench is a linguist. Maybe he can do some online research in Persian and find out something about Mohammed Ebrahim."

"That's a thought."

"I'll ask him tomorrow. My parents asked him to dinner."

"Oh yeah? They like him, huh?"

"They just met him."

"You like him?"

"Sure."

"What about Jackson?"

"I like him too. But of course he's never around."

"That's a drawback. Sometimes I think about that album you found and the picture of your Aunt Del and her husband Albert, and what he wrote: Be mine and I promise to give you everything your heart desires. You're getting everything you desire that's in the Sears catalogue."

"Yeah. And I wanted a good business, it makes money and it's interesting and it even helps people, at least with the Sears kit houses. And I have it. But you know, as soon as you get what you want, you want something else. Or you have to think of something else to want. I mean, there's nothing I really need right now."

"There's always true love."

"Yes, but it's not in the catalogue." Clare poured herself more wine. "It's not in my mental catalogue. I can't picture it. Or him."

"If you could, you'd never be surprised. What a bore."

"Did Jim surprise you?"

"Um, yes. I'm not looking for emotional drama. Just... well, goodness, I suppose. I feel like a better person because of him. What if... you wanted to be your ideal self. Could you picture that?"

"Oh boy. Absolutely not. Some things you can't run after."

"Whoa, we're getting deep here."

Clare laughed. "Oh well, I'm content."

Sunday dinner at her parents, with Clench facing off Nicole and Bill, was a little tense for Clare, but not unpleasant. Everyone else seemed quite comfortable. She gave her parents an abbreviated account of the incident at Starbucks.

Her father, astute as always, asked, "Where do you go from here?"

"Well, I'd like to meet with Mrs. Ebrahim again and find out more about her husband, I guess. Not yet, though. But other than that, there's no place to go. Back to Greenline."

"Do you think that boy will try again to get the helmet?"

"I doubt it. The police talked to him and he knows they're not going to let him get away with anything else. I don't know that he exactly intended to attack his mother but that's what it amounted to. He also knows the helmet is locked in the bank vault and I can't imagine he'd really try to blow up the bank."

"Watch out for pressure cookers," her dad joked.

Everyone was quiet.

"Well, I guess that's what you could call an explosive silence," her mother said. "Who wants coffee and pie?"

# Chapter 17: Media Jihad

Sunday afternoon Clare and Clench formed a tiny convoy driving back to Greenline, making one stop for coffee.

"I hope you're not going to be nervous staying in that house by yourself," Clench said.

"No. My aunt wasn't and I don't believe she ever fired a gun. I'll be fine."

"We'll keep an eye out for that boy. Sheriff Matheson will get the report too."

Clare was glad he said "we" and not "I".

"Awful kid," she said. "I can't imagine trying to force my mother to do something. I mean, my parents were a lot softer than, let's say, their parents, but we just would not have considered trying to boss them around."

"Oh yeah. My dad would have whupped us good if any of us had tried anything like that. We knew better than to try. Not that we didn't do things behind their back, which at least shows some respect."

Clare laughed.

"I know what you mean. Every once in a while my parents learn about something we did years ago that they never knew about, and now it's too late to punish us. All they can do is be thankful we survived and didn't get arrested."

"Same with us. And even now that I'm living with my folks again, they run the house. Of course it's different, they don't try to tell me what to do anymore, no more curfews, but it's their home. And when I have kids, same deal."

"I never gave it much thought before, but I didn't like that kid screaming at his mother," Clare said thoughtfully. "I guess they don't have the honor your father and mother rule."

"The Koran doesn't exactly have the Ten Commandments, but it does say to be kind to your parents."

"Maybe they just have a different idea of what it means to be kind. Like saving her from apostasy, or, whatever. Did you have to read the Koran when you were studying Arabic and Persian?"

"Yes, I read it. To be a translator, or interpreter, you have to get some idea of how people think. It's not just vocabulary and grammar. It's the culture and the ideas."

"Sounds like a lifetime of labor."

"It can be."

"Well, Ali's not the only boy in America who disrespects his parents."

"True."

"This is more about their family than the helmet. I don't think he'll be back."

Clare was wrong, but Ali came back in a way she did not anticipate. The next day, Monday, she drove into town and as usual stopped at the café to get coffee and round off her breakfast with pie, to carry her through the afternoon. The store was closed on Mondays but there was the plenty of paperwork to do. And she bought the local newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, the Columbus Dispatch, and the New York Times.

The Ohio papers reported that Ali had gotten the ACLU to mount a campaign claiming cultural rape and colonialism in Clare's acquisition of the artifact.

"That was fast," Clare muttered to herself, thinking that public opinion would be against her. She didn't know how firm Mrs. Ebrahim could be in standing up against this onslaught.

And it would cost money to get her own lawyer, although the legal case was clear enough, at least according to the police.

She groaned over her chocolate meringue pie.

"What do you do with a problem like Ali Ebrahim," she hummed to herself, but this wasn't The Sound of Music. Of course, Roxie had an uncle who could take care of a problem like Ali. "He's Italian, you know," one of her aunts had whispered to her when they were introduced at a Christmas party years before, by which she meant either that he was Catholic or he was Mafia.

But that would be wrong.

She wondered if she could just ignore this, or, if she absolutely had to get a lawyer, if she could find an anti-sharia lawyer who would work pro bono. She had some money now, but there was no pointing in throwing it down a rat hole.

Or could she just work the media? Would NOW, the National Organization for Women, see this as a woman's right issue, considering the assault on Jennifer Ebrahim? Probably not. Her mother and Roxie's mother had been card-carrying NOW members at one time, but all NOW cared about anymore was abortion, gay marriage, and so on, but not sharia in the U.S. NOW seemed quaintly retro to Clare, insignificant, and Nicole and Roxie's mom had lost interest years ago.

But how about other women? Mothers?

She groaned again. She absolutely did not want to do this, to organize a counter-protest or anything other than The Cellar.

Maybe she could enlist Roxie and Adventuress magazine. Adventuress wasn't about politics, but a good fight always meant a good story. Clare picked up her cell phone.

"Roxie, listen to this."

Clench walked in for his breakfast in time to catch part of her conversation with Roxie.

"I'll call you back, OK? Clare hung up, or rather closed up her phone and put it in her pocket. "So don't you ever eat your mom's good home cooked breakfasts?"

"My mom has a job and doesn't cook breakfast on Mondays."

"Well, let me tell you what Ali's up to now."

Clare repeated the story she'd been telling Roxie.

"So, I'm asking Roxie to start a counter-campaign in her magazine. She has to talk to her editor first."

"Well, that seems like a good idea. Avoid lawyers if at all possible. Although, there's a group called the ACLJ that might be helpful."

"What's that?"

"American Center for Law and Justice. They deal with the ACLU quite a bit, but it's mostly cases that affect constitutional rights and religious freedom. I don't know about a little issue like this."

"Maybe Roxy can blow it up into a matter of principle."

"That sounds cynical."

"So what's Ali doing with the ACLU?"

"Yeah, I see what you're saying."

"And besides mine and his, I don't want to see Ali's mother steamrolled."

Thinking of the scene in Starbucks roused Clare to more enthusiasm for the job ahead of her.

"I'm going to talk to Roxie again later, but meanwhile I need to get to the shop. I need to concentrate on The Cellar and get it open sometime this summer."

"Do you have enough things down there to open?"

"Well, I could open with no more than enough to stock a porch sale, but I'd prefer to have more."

"I found a couple more bottles when I was planting. Since I'm doing it by hand, I'm not breaking them. Not many, anyhow. There seems to have been a small dump on the farm where I'm working. Not public, just family stuff, I guess. But do you know about the town dump?"

"No."

"It's not used anymore. But there used to be an old guy who ran a trash collection business around here. My great-grandpa knew him. Old black guy with one leg. He did this for maybe half a century, up until World War II. He lost a leg jumping from a freight train. Anyway, he and his family lived along a creek on the edge of town, in the woods, and people would pay him to haul away their trash. He sold some of it, someplace else, I guess, but there's an area where he'd unload his wagon. And of course the grounds around his house. I used to poke around there when I was a kid, found a few old pieces of china, bottles, parts of old boots. A little china doll. I bet you could find things for The Cellar if you care to dig around."

"Is it a lot of digging, I mean is it deep?"

"There's a lot of stuff near the surface. Of course things have been growing over it for 60 or 70 years, and the earth has shifted and covered some things, but I wouldn't know how deep it goes. You could find quite a few things near the surface and people might like the local angle."

"Well, it would be exercise. Cross training. Maybe you can show me where it is someday when it's not too hot and buggy."

# Chapter 18: They Ain't From Around Here

Tuesday it began. Two reporters showed up at The Rag and Bone Shop, one in the morning and one just after lunch, one from the Columbus Dispatch, one from the Akron Beacon Journal, both with cameras and tiny recorders. They wanted to talk about Ali Ebrahim and the helmet.

Clare told them both that Mrs. Ebrahim had legal claim to it, but had thrown it away, Clare had spoken with her, the woman did not want it, and Ali didn't own it. No, they couldn't take photos as it was locked in a bank vault and she was not going to take it out. They could use the photos from the parades. Both reporters suggested that Ali had a moral claim to it, as a sentimental reminder of his father, but without going into detail, Clare said that for some reason Mrs. Ebrahim did not want it anymore. And that was that. And Roxy Barbarino of Adventuress magazine in Akron would be getting exclusive stories in the future.

They spent some time trying to question her staff and other townspeople, but no one could tell them anything of interest.

Ed Bennett, who owned an antique shop in Akron, showed up as well. He occasionally came in to check out the Sears merchandise and buy something, though he dealt in finer art pieces and older antiques, but once in a while he wanted something only Sears could provide, or could have provided half a century ago, for himself or for a customer. He was still faintly resentful of his spill in a ditch with his Porsche in the middle of winter, as if it had been Clare's fault, and envied her booming business, unprecedented in the world of antiques and collectibles.

Ed was competitive, which was OK, but he was supercilious even when he wanted what Clare had. It was business, after all. She'd never trusted him since they first met in college at a party where he came dressed in a girl's gold sequined majorette outfit, complete with fringe, a baton, and gold boots with pom-poms. It was not a costume party. His story then was that he was gay, but actually a lesbian, therefore he wanted to sleep with girls. Since Clare had never detected any sense of humor in him, she wasn't sure if he was just trying a goofy way to get girls in bed. Or if, in modern terms, he was subverting heteronormative gender paradigms or some such thing. Maybe it worked for him but she'd never heard of him being with either a girl or a boy. She supposed that would entail his paying a bit of attention to someone else for at least a couple of minutes. On the whole, she thought if he had ever had any intimate encounters, it would have been with someone who looked the most like himself.

He parked his Porsche in front of the store and breezed in.

"Hello, Clare! I've been reading about you and the helmet. How fascinating!"

"Oh, hello, Ed. Yeah, it's fascinating all right."

"Is the helmet of contention on view?"

"No, it's locked up in a bank vault."

"Too bad. I was hoping to get a glimpse. It should boost business, though."

"Actually it is a bit busier today. You and so far two reporters. But there really are more customers today."

"How I envy you."

"I know," Clare said kindly. "But take my word, you wouldn't want to increase business this way. If I wanted to cause trouble for you, I'd give you the helmet."

"Oh, would you?"

"No, I'd sell it at a very high price. But I'm not going to. So what can I do for you today?"

"Oh, I'll just browse around." Ed noticed the sign on the elevator. "What's The Cellar?"

"I'm going to open the basement to sell my stuff left over from the flea market, but I'm also starting to buy things from the local people."

Ed's eyes glittered.

"So far they don't have anything that you'd be interested in. Nothing of great value. Old bottles and clothes and ephemera and old farm equipment and so on. No Chinese porcelain or Colonial era furniture. More of a yard sale."

"Too bad," he said again. "So when do you think you'll open it?"

"Not sure. When I got the idea I had the basement cleaned and painted in a week, and got some showcases right away. But I've had some distractions. No real hurry on it. I want to get more stock, locally, first. Feel free to look around," she said, and turned to talk to one of her clerks. What she really needed to do was sit in the office for a while to look through the old Sears catalogues again and order more merchandise. She kept the catalogues locked in an old safe in the office. She didn't want her customers or anyone else handling them, she wasn't sure if they could be replaced, and she wasn't quite sure if her aunt's catalogues were the only ones that would allow her to order the old things.

"Oh Clare," Ed said, "are you expecting an order today?"

"You mean is Jackson going to come in?"

"Unless someone else is delivering, yes."

"He still brings all the orders. Yes, he should be in any time with his truck."

"Well, I'll just browse through the jewelry, but I could be in the market for more silver."

The door opened and everyone looked up expectantly, but it was just someone delivering a letter that had to be signed for. Clare signed it and said, "I'll be around. Talk to you later," and went back to the office.

The letter was from CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Failing to be assured of a solid legal case, Ali had decided to get CAIR to intervene for him regarding the helmet. Clare signed, groaned, and pounded her forehead (lightly) on her desk. Maybe I should be wearing a helmet, she thought. The letter went on about the cultural significance of the helmet, blah blah, its importance to the religious development and familial sentiment of a young man bereft of his father, blah blah blah, and the bad publicity that would ensue for Clare if she didn't do what they wanted. Blech.

Ali's mother knew something about the helmet's cultural significance that she didn't like. The boy's religious development was iffy, from his mother's, and Clare's, point of view. And CAIR did not seem to realize that any publicity could only help her store. The only thing she had to worry about was a lawsuit, and a quick consultation on the phone Monday morning with Rachel Halperin, the lawyer who had successfully defended her when she was accused of murdering her aunt, convinced her that no lawsuit would be brought. Ali did not have a legal claim. She filed the letter, with no plans to answer it.

She spent a peaceful hour or two compiling catalogue orders until Jackson arrived with a truckload of clothes from the first half of the 20th century. Movie and TV producers, or their wardrobe departments, were buying them faster than she could keep them in stock.

"Hi, Jackson," Clare said, after sending a couple of her staff out to unload the truck from the back alley. His delivery truck today appeared to Clare to be from the 1930s. At least, prewar, as if there had been only the one war dividing American lives into pre- and post-. She supposed in the 19th century, prewar would have been antebellum, before the Civil War. And in the 18th century, war meant the Revolution. She didn't like to think about the next century's defining war, though she suspected it had already begun.

She wondered, not for the first time, why none of Jackson's old trucks had "Antique" license plates. They were all ordinary Illinois plates, but with different years on each one. This one was 1938.

"Hi. How are things going?" Jackson replied.

"Well, I've had a bit of trouble about that helmet. Did you see the story in the papers?"

"Yeah, I know about it. Everything OK?"

"It's going to be OK. After everything happened that you read about in the newspapers, there was a bit of legal trouble. Or at least legal threats. But I think that will go away."

"Let me know if I can help." He looked at her seriously.

Clare was surprised. So far, although he had been the prime instrument — she might have said the prime mover — in changing her life, personally his approach to her had not been an approach: he was always driving away. Except when he showed up at Aunt Del's funeral. So an offer of help was unaccountably — personal.

She looked at him and tried to think of how he could help, or at least, what she could ask of him, to keep him around.

"I'll keep that in mind. I appreciate it." Jackson drove in two or three times a week with deliveries so maybe she'd be able to think up something to ask of him before his next trip.

"I'd like to see the helmet."

"I haven't had it out since July 4th. I'm keeping it locked up. I don't know how long I'll have to do that, because of that kid. I have some good photos, though."

"I saw a photo in the paper. Online too. But I have to hold a thing in my hands to get an idea about it."

How about me, Clare thought, then shook her head to clear it.

"Well, I've tried to do some research online, and I believe it's Persian, or what they call Indo-Persian. Not sure how old it is. One or two centuries."

"The family might know."

"I talked to the woman who threw it out, but we didn't get that far."

"You going to talk to her some more?"

"Possibly."

Jackson nodded, and said no more. They exchanged paperwork and he was off again. He never volunteered anything about himself, never answered questions, and never asked Clare anything personal, not even at the funeral, beyond asking if she were all right and offering to help then too. But she'd had nothing to say to him then. She had her parents and Roxy staying with her at the house, and she could hardly ask him to stay.

# Chapter 19: Rendezvous

Jackson left through the back, returning to his truck, as Clench walked in the front door.

They were like the moon and the sun, Clare thought. Cool and warm. She'd been reading Tales of the Arabian Nights and other fairy tales of her childhood, slipping into a poetic mood from time to time. This was true, though. Jackson had dark hair and eyes so dark you couldn't look into them. It was almost like looking at someone wearing sunglasses. Was he looking at you when you were looking at him? Clench was ruddy and had bright blue eyes and at least you knew what he was looking at, if not always exactly what he was thinking.

Clench handed her an old teacup.

"I dug this up. It's not chipped or anything so I can't figure out why anyone, least of all my folks, would have thrown this out."

It was a willow ware pattern in a bright blue.

"This is so pretty, Clench. What do you want for it?"

"Oh, I don't know. It's not extremely valuable but as you say, it's in great condition. Five dollars be OK?"

"Sure."

"So you think maybe your grandmother or great-grandmother or somebody put it in the trash heap?"

"I suppose so. You know the family has lived on that land for a long time. But they wouldn't throw out something in perfect condition. I mean, the bottle I brought you would be just an empty medicine bottle or something, not used for anything else but the medicine. But they weren't so rich that they'd throw out something just because they got tired of it. I was lucky the shovel didn't damage it."

"Yeah. Well, maybe somebody was just sitting outside having a cup of tea, and left it there for some reason. Set it down on the ground and forgot it, like maybe a big storm came up suddenly and she had to run to take the laundry down off the lines. Then the cup got covered over by grass and eventually more dirt. And here you have it."

Clench laughed. "I could see that. I don't think she'd forget the cup, though. Something else must have happened. Maybe she got hit by lightning and totally forgot about it."

This time Clare laughed. "You know, every little thing in the store, at least all the old things I sold at the flea market, has a history and sometimes I'm curious, I'd like to follow the trajectory of every object through time."

"So you want to know everything that's ever happened everywhere."

"Yeah, it makes me crazy. Well, maybe it doesn't make me crazy, I've already got there, thus this job."

"Phone for you, Clare." The salesclerk came over to tell her. Clare had asked everyone not to yell across the store.

"Thanks. Excuse me." She went back to the office to pick up the call.

"Hello, this is Clare Bower."

"This is Jennifer Ebrahim."

"Oh! Hello, uh, Jennifer. Is everything OK?"  
"I was just wondering if I could drive down and see you. To talk."

"Well, sure. When did you want to come?"

"Would today work for you? This evening?"

"Uh, sure. I'll just wait here in the store for you. It's not hard to find. You can Google the address. Um, are you going to tell Ali where you're going?"

"No."

"Good. So what time do you think you'll be here? It's about a four-hour drive."

"I could be there around six."

"OK. See you then. Drive carefully."

She stayed in the office for a couple of minutes, wondering what Jennifer Ebrahim had to say that required her to make that drive, instead of just telling her on the phone. And whatever it was, why tell her and not someone in Akron? She had said, though, that she really didn't have any friends she could talk to. No point in trying to predict, Clare thought, and went back into the store to talk to Clench.

"Guess who just called?"

She told him. Clench had no more idea what it might be about than Clare did.

"Too bad we don't have a coffee shop across from the café for me to sit in. I bet you take her to the diner to talk."

"I guess I will. I don't want to take her home, somehow, though it would be more private. But if she sees you, she might clam up. After all, whatever it is, she's not talking to the police in Akron."

"There's the Rendezvous."

The Rendezvous was a not too seedy bar across from the Greenline Café.

"Yeah, but the window might be too dirty to see through," Clare said.

"I'll get ol' Luther to clean it just for me, just this once."

"You might have to bring your own Windex. He let me put flyers in his window a couple of times, but I taped them to the outside. It's cleaner. Anyway, she said she wasn't telling Ali where she was going."

"Maybe he'll follow her. He's a controlling little feller."

"I hope she has the sense to... I don't know, send him to the store or something. And to turn off any GPS she might have on her phone or in the car."

"You think of everything," Clench said approvingly. "But he's the reason I'd like to be on hand."

Clare nodded. She accepted his role as a peacekeeper of the town, and Ali had proven himself to be a peacebreaker more than once.

# Chapter 20: Revelations

Jennifer Ebrahim arrived about six, and said she'd had no trouble finding the place. She was not wearing the hijab. After showing her around the store briefly, Clare closed up shop and steered her to the Greenline Café. She saw that the Rendezvous window was clean for a change, and Clench appeared to be seated close to the front. At least they sold hamburgers, she thought.

"I'm going to open up the downstairs space and sell old things, not the Sears stuff," Clare said as they crossed the street, "and I intended to put the helmet in a showcase but now I won't. It's still locked in the bank vault."

"Which bank?"

"The one over there."

"Maybe you should put it in a bank someplace else."

They ordered iced tea and the dinner special, stuffed green peppers, and Clare waited silently for the woman to begin. She was obviously tense, but determined.

"I wanted to explain more to you. To tell you some things I haven't told anybody," she began.

Clare nodded.

"I'm glad you didn't give in to pressure to return that helmet to Ali. It would be a bad thing. I think it must be cursed."

Clare raised her eyebrows.

"Oh, maybe not really. But it might as well be. It was handed down in my husband's family, of course, from his father's line, going back quite a while, I don't know exactly. Some warrior in the family wore it. I don't know where or what battles he fought in, but they said he was a great warrior. They like to think he was descended from Saladin, who lived almost a thousand years ago and fought the Crusaders. A lot of people like to associate themselves with Saladin. Saddam Hussein, for instance." She took a sip of her tea.

Their food arrived and Jennifer Ebrahim dug into hers with surprising gusto.

"So," she went on between bites, "the family tradition was that everyone who owned the helmet afterward, or at least every generation, ought to kill at least one person, one infidel. That's just their family, you understand, but I always thought Mo and Ali picked up enough from the mosque to make them more comfortable with that notion. I tried to divert Mo from that way of thinking but he said I just didn't understand. And after 9/11, he seemed to like the idea more, not less. Frankly, I thought he was going insane. He wasn't the man I married, or so I thought. He'd say things like, 'On a day like 9/11 the helmet could satisfy many generations of our family.' But you know, I thought he was fantasizing. Even though that really happened in New York, and other places for that matter, it did not seem real to me. In Akron."

Clare started to feel uneasy at the thought of that helmet being nearby. The helmet wasn't responsible for anything, though. It couldn't do anything. But maybe it had acted as a magnet for certain thoughts.

"Well, he calmed down and stopped talking about it. He had his business, importing carpets, beautiful things, and was doing well. The kids were growing up. We had some good times. But then when Adeleh entered her teens, he started cracking down. Didn't want her to spend time with her friends from school, only girls from the mosque, but they didn't live near us anyway. And as I said, by that time I'd lost touch with my old friends, and didn't, well, have new ones."

She sighed.

"This is a tiresome story, isn't it? But I haven't told it before. So, maybe once or twice a year he'd go back to Iran, and sometimes Turkey and Iraq, for a couple of weeks at a time, sometimes more, to buy carpets and other things and spend time with his family. I'd gone with him a couple of times, with the kids, earlier in our marriage, but later I refused to go, and I wouldn't let the kids go with him if I didn't go. Actually I was scared, but it was a relief to have him gone."

"So I guess you couldn't talk to him much about how you felt?" Clare asked.

"Are you kidding? Things went on this way for years, but when Ali turned 18, Mo wanted to take him along with him on his business trips, and I agreed. He was 18, after all, and wanted to go. Mo wanted to teach him the business. And it was a relief to have him gone too. I couldn't relax in my own home, let alone have a life outside it. Except my job, but that was working for Mo in his office. So they were gone in April. Ali skipped classes. Adeleh and I could talk to each other."

Clare was wondering where this was leading. So far there was nothing surprising. She ordered pie.

"Have some," she urged. "It's really good here." Jennifer Ebrahim ordered pie. They were sitting at a table by the window, which provided a little more space between them and the other customers, and they were keeping their voices down. Clare looked across the street at the Rendezvous, and saw Clench still there. She gave a small nod in his direction and turned back to Jennifer.

"How about coffee? Are you driving back to Akron tonight?"

"Yes. I thought about visiting my daughter. I told you she's in another state, but it's — adjacent to Ohio. I could do it tonight. But Ali will be home later and I'll just tell him I visited my parents. Or that I went with my mother to see my aunt across town. Something."

"I suppose he's not close to your parents?"

"Not really. We do the usual visits, but Mo was kind of hostile about holidays, like Christmas and Easter, and didn't want their influence. They have become more religious over the years. Catholic. I guess I'm an extra lapsed Catholic." She smiled wryly.

"But I used to sort of automatically mention some basic principles that I thought were universal. Individual freedom of conscience and so on. A lot of things that really are Judeo-Christian or American, not universal. They seemed self-evidently universal to me."

"Well, the Declaration of Independence says 'We hold these truths to be self-evident'," Clare said. "I guess they're not." Clare remembered wearing that flaming Persian helmet in the Fourth of July parade, celebrating the self-evident truths that people had to be reminded of at least once a year.

"No, they're not. Not part of Iranian culture and history, although I do think a lot of people there feel it. I mean, they feel normal desires for autonomy. I think it's built into human nature. But it's not like the Koran expresses all the same ideas we have but in a different way. The ideas are actually different. Not only do they speak a different language, they think a different, uh, logos. See, there's something I remember from Christianity."

This was a little beyond Clare. She'd never paid too much attention to religion or philosophy. Maybe it was time.

The pie and coffee arrived. Clare was wishing she could just pop over to the Rendezvous and have a cold beer with Clench, but it wasn't a place she wanted to hang out at. Maybe the diner could get a beer and wine license.

"So anyway, I encouraged Mo to go on this trip in April, and take Ali, but I knew it wasn't just a business trip. I knew he was planning a suicide bombing. I killed Mo. I just wanted it to be there and not here."

# Chapter 21: Heroism Addict

#

Clare spit out a bit of coffee. "What?!"

"I said I killed Mo. And I almost killed my son. I let him go along. He wanted to do what his father did."

"But you weren't there and you didn't make him go. And you said you tried to change his thinking."

"True. But at the end, I just said, go. And take Ali. I knew what he was going to do."

"How did he react when you told him to go?"

Jennifer looked down. She said in a low voice, "I think he was sorry. I think maybe he wanted me to keep fighting him on this. And I could have. I mean, he'd make his business trips anyway, but what else he did when he traveled, I don't know. Who he talked to. This time I knew he had a plan. If I kept fighting him on it, then I would be fighting Ali too. All the time. Mo said to me, I want Ali to learn about our heritage and bring it back here. I think he was telling me that Ali would do what he did, but back here instead of in Iran. So." She drank more coffee. "It wasn't reported in the papers here. It's hard to get news from Iran. But I learned from his parents that Mo blew himself up outside a Christian church in Tehran. It was sort of an underground church, meeting in someone's home. He had — talked to me about doing something like that. And I said, that would be the same as killing my parents, and any of family. That didn't matter to him, but I think he didn't want to hurt me to that extent."

They were quiet for a moment.

"Mo took the helmet to Iran with him on that trip and Ali brought it back. Not that it couldn't have happened even if the helmet didn't exist, but it does."

"Maybe it should be melted down for scrap. But no one will see it. I'm not taking it out again," Clare said. After a minute, she asked, "Does your daughter know about any of this?"

"I didn't want her to know but Ali told her when he got back. Like he was triumphant. And he was saying he was the head of the family now. That's why I sent her away. She was terrified. I know he is devastated by his father's death, but he thinks Mo did a wonderful thing, that he's a hero, he's in heaven now, so his normal feelings are sort of covered up by all the other stuff."

"You said you intentionally sent him along on this trip," Clare said brutally.

"I did. The only normal person in our family is Adeleh. She is good. As for me, I don't know how long you can go on telling someone not to kill innocent people without giving up and getting just as crazy as he is. So I more or less told him to go on that trip. We didn't have the same definition of innocent people."

They drank their coffee and ate their pie. From the Rendezvous, Clench saw Clare rest her head in her hands and wondered what they could be talking about.

"Why are you telling all this to me?" Clare asked.

"I told you I don't have anyone to talk to, and I trust you."

Clare went to the point. "Yes, but if you think Ali is dangerous, why not tell the police, or FBI? Maybe they should know how Mo died. Maybe they should keep an eye on Ali. And his friends at the mosque."

"How could they stop him from doing anything, unless they just lock him up indefinitely?"

"That might be the best thing. I mean, I have family and friends in Akron too, and I don't want anything to happen to them. I don't suppose you're sending him back to Iran for another visit?"

"Of course not. Maybe as long as he doesn't have the helmet, he won't try to do anything."

There's no "of course" about it, Clare thought. She'd always thought the wives and girlfriends of murderers who "loved" them were complicit; they loved the evil too. But Jennifer Ebrahim first loved a handsome, charming, intelligent, exotic, passionate man who fulfilled her romantic dream of the tall dark hero. She just didn't know him. And he changed over the years, or perhaps unmasked, even to himself. His dreams of heroism were not the same as hers. Now even her love for her own son was corrupted.

"I wouldn't count on Ali not trying anything," Clare said. "And you have your daughter to consider too."

"I do consider her. Are you saying I should tell the police? Are you going to talk to them? You said I could trust you."

"Are you saying I should put myself in danger? You can trust me with anything private. But whatever affects the public, and that's anybody outside of you and me, and in fact includes me, is a different matter."

The woman had no answer.

"But after all, you haven't told me anything specific," Clare admitted. "I mean like, he plans to bomb the bank at 3:00 a.m. on the first Sunday of next month, or something like that. He doesn't, does he?"

"No. Not that I know of."

"Of course the police here know what he's done in our little town, and in Akron too, now. If you talk to him when you get home, you could let him know that I'm putting the helmet in a bank vault in another town, not anyplace nearby. You don't have to tell him you came here, just tell him I called you. For that matter, I could call him and tell him. Or maybe I'll just text him. I don't really fancy talking to him."

They both sipped their now cold coffee, and the waitress came over and refilled their cups.

"I guess we didn't resolve anything. But at least you got to get that off your chest. The part about you killing Mo — you're not responsible. I mean, there's no way to know exactly... and I won't discuss your feelings about that with anyone else. The only real question is whether Ali is likely to commit mayhem. And you don't seem to know. I didn't like the way he handled you at Starbucks, though. Has anything like that happened before?"

"No, but I never took off the hijab in public before, since I was married."

"Are you going to put it back on?"

"No. I haven't worn it since that day, and Ali seems to have accepted the change. I mean, he seems to hate me, but he's not trying to... do anything."

"Well, that's something."

Jennifer Ebrahim's story, or confession, was over, and she took her leave before the sun went down.

"I want to get back on the highway while it's still easy for me to find it," she said. "Once I get on I-77 I know my way."

"Well, be safe. And feel free to call me or visit any time. Really. I'll — I'll be thinking about you."

Clare patted her somewhat awkwardly on the shoulder as she got in her car and drove off, at which point Clench popped out of the Rendezvous and waved Clare over.

"You want to tell me about it? The café is closing. You want to sit in here and have a beer or something else?"

"Oh, all right. I've had enough coffee."

She went in with him. The Rendezvous wasn't that bad, just a little dingy. There were few people in it at that time midweek. It had not undergone the refurbishing that the café and some of the other establishments in Greenline had following the increase in all business in town that came with the phenomenal success of The Rag and Bone Shop. However, the proprietor was giving some thought to freshening things up a little as even his business had increased enough to pay for it. In the past, he had every year the place painted because every year the walls and ceiling turned brown from cigarette smoke. Now that smoking in public places was forbidden by Ohio law, he'd stopped doing that, but the grime had sunk into the surfaces. He was thinking of building a patio out back in the alley where smoking would be allowed.

"I'll have a gin and tonic."

Clench ordered it for her and a beer for himself.

"So why did Mrs. Ebrahim drive all the way down here to have dinner with you, then turn right around and go home? At least I assume she went home."

"Yeah, she did. Well, she wanted to unload about her family troubles. Her feelings and so on. She doesn't have any friends or family she can talk to, other than her children, and that's not working. But I did find out how Mohammed Ebrahim died."

"Oh yeah?"

"It wasn't in the news here, but he went back to Iran on a business trip, and died in a suicide bombing."

"So it was an accident?"

"No, he did it. He blew up a Christian church in Tehran. His son was with him in Iran, but wasn't in the bombing, anyway he's not dead. He came home, and apparently wants to follow in his father's footsteps."

"Hm. I could make some cracks here about the whereabouts and condition of his father's feet, but I won't."

"Thank you."

"So she was telling you there's a terrorist conspiracy afoot? Sorry."

"No. She didn't have anything specific to say. She's just worried. The helmet has some sort of history. The family tradition is that every generation that possesses the helmet should be part of the holy war, and kill an infidel. At least one. So Mohammed Ebrahim did his part. Now Ali wants the helmet back. Whether or not he thinks he has to have it to do the deed, I don't know. But I told her I'm putting it in another bank, far away, and to tell Ali that. No one will know where it is."

"Are you really going to do that?"

"Yes, I am. I'll go to Cincinnati or Pittsburgh or someplace. Maybe further, maybe to another state. Tomorrow. Anyway, it's hard to say what Ali will do. The whole family seems unstable to me. Jennifer Ebrahim seems to think her daughter is the only sane one, but she's not there now."

"And she is sane because...?"

"I guess she doesn't want to blow anyone up. She just an ordinary American girl. You know in college we'd b.s. about all kinds of things and always ended up saying something like, well, everybody thinks they're right from their point of view, who are we to say our thinking or our culture is any better, etc. etc. But before we sort all that out, we need not to be blown up."

"I'm with you there."

# Chapter 22: Showdown on Main Street

The next day, once again Clare left the shop in the hands of her trusty staff and before the store opened, jumped on I-77 to drive down to Charleston, West Virginia, and deposit the helmet in a bank there. If the bank thought it was odd that she'd be opening an account out of state, she could say that she often visited family there and it would be useful. She took the helmet out of the Greenline bank vault as soon as the bank opened, but retained the safe deposit box rental. It might come in handy for something. She put the helmet in a cardboard box, because a bag would reveal the shape of its contents too much, and put it in the cab of her truck. She didn't want to drive the old Valiant, but the drawback of having a truck was that it had no trunk so she couldn't lock anything up invisibly in the back, and she didn't have, for instance, a locking toolbox in the back or even a truck cap. The best she could do was put the box in the back seat of the extended cab.

It was no surprise to her that Clench showed up. That man... well, it is sort of police business.

"You heading out of town?" he asked.

"Yeah. I'm going to find another bank, like I said."

"Could I ask where?"

"Charleston," Clare whispered.

"Well, that's closer than Cincinnati or Pittsburgh," he whispered back.

"Yeah."

"You want an escort?"

"If I thought Ali would show up, I'd say yes. But I'm sure his mother did not tell him where she went, and I don't think he'd guess she came here."

Clench looked up and down the street. "Maybe not. I guess you'll be OK. What time do you think you'll get back?"

"Oh, I'll probably eat lunch in Charleston then drive back early afternoon."

"Um, are you carrying?"

"Yes, sir. And I have my license."

He thumped on her door after she got in and watched her drive away, then drove back to the farm. He was off duty that day. After lunch he drove back into town and stopped in The Rag and Bone Shop, but Clare wasn't back yet. He wondered if she'd told her staff where she went.

"Hey Clench," Sandy said when he came in.

"Hey Sandy. Clare in?"

"No, she hasn't been in yet today."

"You know where she is?" Clench asked Sandy.

"No, she called this morning and said she had some business out of town. I didn't see her, she was gone before we opened up."

So Clare hadn't told anyone else where she went.

"So you know when she'll be back?"

"She said early afternoon."

"OK, I'll go get some coffee and wait around for her."

"Hot day for coffee."

"So I'll get iced tea."

Sandy smiled as he left. Everyone knew that Clench looked out for Clare, and it wasn't only because he was a conscientious officer of the law, even if just part-time.

After Clench went into the café, someone else came in, jingling the little bell that hung over the front door. Sandy recognized him as the kid who'd tried to snatch the helmet at the Memorial Day picnic. She hadn't seen the incident but in follow-up stories, she'd seen his photo in the papers. Something about CAIR. She couldn't very well tell him to get out. Could she? There were other customers in the store.

"May I help you?" she asked preemptively. She didn't want him browsing around.

"Is Clare Bower here?"

"No, she's not."

"When will she be here?"

"I couldn't say. She's on a business trip."

"I can wait."  
"You could be waiting a long time. She won't be back today."

Ali Ebrahim looked at her coldly.

"Maybe she's just at home. Sick. Or working at home. I could go to her house."

"Maybe you should get out of here."

Maybe I should take one of those concealed carry classes, Sandy thought. She slowly reached under the counter as if to pull out a weapon, or push an alarm, but there really wasn't anything there to help her.

Ali looked around the store, walked into the other rooms and looked around, and seeing that Clare wasn't there, walked out, after shooting a squinty eyed, menacing glare at Sandy. She told the other clerk to hold the fort for a few minutes and ran across the street to the café, to tell Clench what had happened.

Clench jumped up and sped out of the café in time to see Ali get into his car. But he just got in to sit. He didn't turn the engine on.

Clench approached the car and banged on the window. Ali rolled it down.

"We told you not to come back here. And if you'll recall, when you were downtown Akron, you were also told that we're running out of patience with you. Lots of little things are going to add up to one big enough to lock you down for a while."

"It's a free country," he sneered.

"Not so much for you anymore, son. What are you doing here? This is the third time that I know of that you've come to Greenline."

"Don't call me son!" Ali screamed.

Clench might have felt a twinge of compassion at this, if he hadn't learned how Ali's father had died.

Just then Clare drove in and parked in front of the store. She used to park on the street behind the store, an alley that served a repair garage and a few other rag-tag businesses as well as the backs of some main street stores like hers, but she felt a little safer these days parking in front on the main drag.

When Clare got out of her car, Ali saw her and slid over to the passenger side of his car away from where Clench was leaning, jumped out, and ran over to her, yelling abuses much as he had done with his mother in Starbucks. Clare couldn't make out what he was saying but she got the general gist. Did he know his mother had been there the day before, and if so, how did he know?

If she'd seen him in time she wouldn't have gotten out of her truck.

Ali grabbed Clare's arms, but Clench ran around Ali's car to Clare, and threw Ali down to the ground. Ali put up a good fight, but so did Clench and he was bigger. Clench thought Ali must play sports or do some sort of training. Not a skilled martial art, but something that had built up his strength. What sort of training did suicide bombers have, he wondered. Probably none. It wasn't as if they were real soldiers, or planned to have a fair fight with anyone, although the Tsarnaev brothers did some boxing and wrestling. But that had nothing to do with their bombing.

Clench called in to the sheriff's office, and when Sheriff Matheson arrived in a couple of minutes they hustled Ali into the back of the sheriff's car. Clench explained to the sheriff what happened, then turned to Clare.

"Are you OK? Did he hurt you?"

She felt her arms and looked at them.

"I might get some bruises. But I'm OK. Lucky you were there."

"This time we've got an assault charge on him — you will press charges, won't you?"

"Oh yeah."

"So we'll lock him up and call his mother."

"Well, come on in so we can write up a report," Sheriff Matheson said.

"Let me go in the store for a couple of minutes and I'll be right there," Clare said.

"OK. Sheriff, be careful, he likes to fight. I'll go with you," Clench said to Clare.

The sheriff drove off to the little jailhouse and office, which was just a couple of blocks down the street. He parked and turned around to Ali, seething in the back seat, and said, "We'll just wait in the car till my deputy gets here and he can haul you into the lockup. I could do it myself but I just hate to pull out my gun if I don't have to." Then he pulled it out of his shoulder holster, showed it to Ali, and put it back. "You don't have any weapons on you, do you?"

Ali didn't answer.

"Well, we'll check you out inside. I want your car keys anyway. And your phone. And whatever else you have on you."

The sheriff's tone was more like that of a methodical bureaucrat taking inventory than one a lawman taking in a prisoner, but that could be deceptive. He was methodical, and he never took chances with wild young men who had chips on their shoulders. The older he got, the fewer chances he took. That included any steps that might come up in court in a trial, as well as physical chances. Like the Mounties he always got his man, and he never let his man get away.

# Chapter 23: The Mills of Law Grind Slowly

Clare and Clench arrived shortly and Clench helped the sheriff put Ali in a cell, and they took care of the paperwork.

"This is the third time he's been in Greenline," Sheriff Matheson began.

"That's just what I told him."

"Every time he goes a little further."

"He has no reason to come back," Clare said. "The helmet isn't here anymore. I took it to another bank, in another town. In fact out of state."

"Does he know that?"

"I'll be sure to tell him."

"That doesn't mean he wouldn't come back after you, and try to force you to tell him or take him to the bank or something."

"I could tell him I had it melted down for scrap. Of course, he might want the scrap," she said.

"He might not believe you."

"Sheriff, I think you ought to know about his mother's visit to Clare," Clench said. "You want to tell him, Clare?"

"Yesterday she told me her husband, Ali's father, died in Iran in April on one of his business trips. But it wasn't just a business trip. He was a suicide bomber. Ali went with him but he wasn't part of the bombing, anyway not close enough to get hurt. So now he thinks his father is a hero. Mrs. Ebrahaim seems to be worried that Ali wants to do the same thing, here in Ohio, anyway in the States. But she doesn't know anything for sure."

"Good god. Do the Akron police know about this?"

"I don't think so, not yet. When the father died, the papers didn't report on how he died. His wife only found out because her in-laws told her, and of course Ali told her. That's when she sent her daughter away. She was scared More scared, that is."

"They need to know. I mean the Akron PD. Clench, you get on the phone to the Akron PD now and tell them."

Clare was used to making decisions and taking action slowly, by comparison with the brisk arrest and the rapid moving of information to Akron. That's why The Cellar wasn't open yet, she reminded herself. Was she waiting for some outside signal to tell her to do it?

On the other hand, she suddenly had another new idea, to open another storefront specializing in old Sears appliances, but not so old that they'd be inefficient in a modern house. Except for wringer washers, which some people just loved. And all those blenders and toasters...

"What's that?" she said, startled, hearing her name repeated.

"I said, do you want to call her mother before I do?" Clench asked. "The sheriff wanted me to do it instead of him since I already met her, and it would be better to do it before the Akron police call her out of the blue."

Clare was starting to think her mind wandered to her business as an escape from the worrisome Ebrahims. On the other hand, all this was an escape from her work.

"Oh sure, I'll call her."

"And Clench," Sheriff Matheson said, "I'm going to call the FBI and CIA too."

"Both? Who has jurisdiction?"

"Who knows? FBI is within our borders, CIA outside, so maybe both of them. Anyway I'll tell 'em both and let 'em fight it out."

"I thought the Akron mosque was mainly black American Muslims," Clare said.

"I think it was originally," Clench replied. "But as more Muslims immigrated from other countries, it changed. But now that I think of it, maybe the Ebrahims didn't go to that one. There's another one called the Islamic Society of Akron and Kent, in Cuyahoga Falls, and it's just as close to them and probably more upscale. I bet they went to that one."

"We'll ask him," the sheriff said. "Meanwhile, Clench, you call the Akron PD. Clare, please call Mrs. Ebrahaim. I'll call the FBI and CIA. And then we'll have a chat with Ali."

Since there weren't other rooms for them to spread out for private conversation, other than the restrooms, Clench and Clare stepped outside on the sidewalk and walked to different corners of the building, while the sheriff made his calls from his desk.

Jennifer Ebrahim wasn't so much upset at Ali's arrest as she was relieved that he hadn't done worse, and that he was locked up where he couldn't do anything else for the time being.

"What I don't understand, Jennifer, is why he came here again. Is there any way he could have known you were in Greenline yesterday?" Clare asked.

"Not unless he was checking the odometer on my car. But I doubt it had anything to do with me or my visit. I think he was just having another go at the helmet."

"Probably. But it's gone now. I took it away this morning. Far away. But listen, this time he's going to get into trouble, first for assaulting me, and then — well, they're going to contact the Akron police department and the FBI and the CIA to look into who he's been talking to, here or abroad. I told them how your husband died, and that you were worried that Ali wanted to follow suit."

"I guess you had to."

"Maybe this will stop him from getting into worse trouble."

"Well, it's going to get worse before it gets better, because all this is going to make him more angry. And... I think bringing the FBI and CIA into it will make him feel more important, so that he'll want to keep following the same course. Unfortunately they can't keep him locked up for long when he hasn't really done anything more than commit a minor assault. So, you know, we, or you, can't just follow him around all the time and try to keep him straight."

"I suppose he wants to call a lawyer? Does he want to talk to me?"

"I don't know. The sheriff has just told us about what we have to do first, like make phone calls, but he hasn't talked to Ali yet. I don't know the exact procedure but he will have to read him his rights and let him call a lawyer if he wants to. Do you have a lawyer?"

"My husband had one for business. I doubt if he knows anything about criminal law. And I'm not going to ask anyone from the mosque."

"I have a lawyer but I'm keeping her for myself. I might need her again. Well, he can always get a public defender."

"I don't know if I want to put up his bail, if it comes to that."

"Tough love?"

"Yeah. I don't even know about the love part right now."

"Well, love doesn't always look like what we expect. Listen, I'm going to go. I can call you later, if you like."

"I'd appreciate it."

Clare was suddenly exhausted, after her trip to Charleston and the scene with Ali. And the call to Jennifer Ebrahim. Every conversation she had with the woman seemed so very important yet inconclusive. Clare liked to come away from encounters like these — but she didn't have any other encounters just like these — with solid information or with a plan, a task, a goal. Learning how Mohammed Ebrahim died was significant, but she couldn't do anything about it.

She turned back toward the entrance door at the center of the building and faced Clench walking back from the other direction.

"Did you tell the Akron police everything?"

"Yes. I saw we can hold him here for the time being. It's not their jurisdiction. But I also told them why the sheriff is contacting the FBI and CIA."

"Well, that's a stunner, isn't it?"

"Sure is, for Greenline."

# Chapter 24: Just Business

Knowing Ali would be safely locked up for the time being, Clare effected re-entry into her real life: coffee and pie at the Greenline Café, then chat with her staff about The Cellar and a possible Sears appliance adjunct store. For once, Clench didn't follow her to the café. He was busy moving Ali's car from the street to parking behind the jail, and searching it thoroughly.

"About The Cellar, I want to get more things in it before opening. People have been bringing things in but we can't just take everything left over from their yard sales, we have to be somewhat selective. I think we need flyers in the surrounding towns and maybe an ad in the paper. I'll take care of that, but maybe one of you can drive around the county to post flyers. Now, let's talk about appliances."

The empty dress shop next door that she'd considered for The Cellar, before settling on the old Woolworth's basement, was too small for an appliance store if she wanted to carry larger items like refrigerators, stoves, washers, and dryers, and the floor might not be able to hold all that weight. It would be fine for small appliances. She'd expanded the main store into an old bakery and shoe shop on either side of the Woolworth store, and they had basements too, but so far she had no use for them. Moving even small appliances downstairs and then up again would not be a good idea. Better to move sideways into another street-level store. And she wouldn't use the basements for stock. People bought what was on the shelves, and sometimes she agreed to special orders. But there was no stock room of extras.

What about tools? She already carried a small selection of Sears tools from the later catalogues, but they went fast and she could probably sell a lot more. And old farm equipment.

Clare had been to Lehman's, the huge store in Kidron, Ohio, that sold all sorts of low tech tools and farm supplies and housewares. Originally established to serve the Amish, Lehman's now attracted tourists and Hollywood set designers, even missionaries working in remote parts of the world without much of a power grid. The Rag and Bone Shop attracted Lehman's customers too. The stores were about three hours apart, but a serious shopper, or tourist, would be likely to spend an entire day at one or the other because Lehman's was so big, and The Rag and Bone Shop was getting bigger. They weren't exactly competitors since The Rag and Bone Shop carried original antique Sears catalogue items exclusively, which no one else in the world could. Lehman's carried modern reproductions, or continuing productions, of old products, but not the clothes and jewelry that Clare also sold.

Clare wondered briefly if Jennifer Ebrahim intended to continue her husband's import business. Probably not. Clare doubted that she wanted to make those business trips to Iran. Would Ali continue the business? Not if he had more pressing plans. Should she offer to buy whatever carpet stock they might still have? A one-time special purchase sale. Ali wouldn't like that, but Jennifer might want to distance herself from the business. However, Ali might have inherited the business. Maybe Jennifer needed money, though; Ali would not necessarily support her, not without controlling her every move, and there was no reason for Jennifer to tolerate that just for whatever money he wanted to give her. She was young and able to get another job.

Meanwhile, there was plenty of work to be done before she started up a new project. She went back to her office, after whispering to Sandy, "I don't want to talk to any customers today about where I get the Sears merchandise. I'm going to be busy."

One of the things she had to take care of was the Sears kit house deliveries. She probably could have sold a house kit to half the population of the country. But none of Jackson's delivery vans were not big enough to carry one kit, and he never drove a semi, so they had to be delivered by train to a freight station the next town over. Clare wanted to re-open the old train track in Greenline. At one time there had been a siding that ran behind her store and the line of shops on the main street. Now, anyone who ordered a kit house had to make arrangements to unload, usually one box car and one flat bed, which was fine. They presented their receipts to the station master and unloaded to a semi or sometimes made several trips with smaller truck or a horse trailer. So far it had worked out, and Clare didn't need to be there, nor anyone else from the store.

She did wonder if the train engineer was like Jackson — someone with an unexplained connection to the sources of the Sears goods. Of course she'd asked Jackson, but he just said rather vaguely that the kits were loaded at a warehouse somewhere and the engineer had nothing to do with it. In any case, she would just feel better if that part of the business were also in Greenline. So she needed to call the railroad company. Greenline owned the land under the old tracks, and also owned what abandoned tracks remained and the old depot. Luckily they hadn't been torn up to make a bike trail. A little way out of town, the tracks ran by a river, so the idea had been bandied about, but nothing had come of it. The city had agreed to the reopening of the tracks and sidings. They hadn't seen so much activity in decades.

She wouldn't actually need the siding behind her building. That would be too noisy and too crowded. But if the old train depot were opened again, maybe she could use it for a little extra office space. It was a couple of blocks down and back. If the house kits came into Greenline, it would give some of the local guys another way to make money, unloading and loading. She even knew of a couple of men in town who were independent truckers with semis.

There'd been some talk about making the old train station into a little restaurant, different from the Greenline Café; maybe just ice cream, maybe a coffee shop. But Clare wanted at least half of it for office space.

Time to move her thinking across the street.

"I'll be at the café, Sandy," Clare called after locking the office.

She took notebook as usual, and sat down for some coffee and strawberry pie.

"Thanks, Jeanette. Say, I have another marketing survey for you. My surveys always include just one person."

"Ha! I am honored."

"Do you think people around here would prefer a store with little appliances, like blenders and toasters and irons, or big ones like washers and dryers and refrigerators? Old Sears, of course."

"Sooner or later somebody's going to want something of everything. But right off hand, I'd say maybe the little ones. People replace them more often, and they will buy them for gifts, you know."

"Yeah, that makes sense. I'm thinking of opening a room for appliances in the old Bon Marché dress shop."

"Oh, that'll be good. I think people will go for that. When is The Cellar going to open?"

"I need to collect some more merchandise before I open up. Just to get off to a good start. Maybe I'll hit some flea markets this weekend. I might have to drive up to the Hartville flea market again, and do some yard sales in Akron. I want people around here to bring in their things but I don't want to stock it just with things from around here. It would be like going to the church rummage sale."

"Which is this weekend."  
"Arrgghh. I might have to go to that. I can go to Akron another weekend."

"So, I saw that boy get arrested."

"Oh yeah? He's locked up now. Don't know for how long, but this time it's more serious."

"The newspaper know about it yet?"

"I don't know. I haven't talked to anybody but the sheriff and the sales clerks."

"Oh, I heard people talking about it in here a couple of hours before you came in. Everybody knows. I expect they'll check the police reports and maybe want to talk to you later."

Before Clare finished her pie, Jerry Jenkins, the one reporter for the Greenline Week walked in.

"Hi Clare. Mind if I sit with you?"

# Chapter 25: Men in Black and Blue

All in all Clare got about half a day's work done, four hours anyway, not half of her usual day's work, what with driving to Charleston, being attacked by Ali, filing her statement with the sheriff, and talking to the reporter. The next day she expected to accomplish a lot more. And would have but for the visit from two men she thought of as "men in black," except their suits were actually black and blue, respectively. FBI and CIA. They came together, which Clare thought was unusual. She had the idea that even the federal government had trouble getting the agencies to coordinate their work. She took them back to her office.

They introduced them selves as John Gibbs and Raymond Marsh, black suit/blue suit, FBI/CIA.

Clare repeated what she'd told the sheriff and Clench, all about Ali's attempts to steal the helmet, leading to his attack on Clare; her meeting with Jennifer Ebrahim to find out more about the helmet and decide whether or not to give it back; Mrs. Ebrahim's disclosure that her husband had died in a suicide bombing, as the bomber, in Iran in April.

"So are you here to pick up Ali?"

"No, the local police have jurisdiction," said the FBI man. "We talked to him already. What we're going to do is investigate the mosque in Akron Mr. Ebrahim goes to."

"And we're going to look into his foreign contacts," added the CIA man.

"Could we see the helmet?" said the FBI man.

"It's in a bank safe deposit box. It was in the bank here, but I was afraid Ali might try to rob the bank, so I put it someplace else yesterday. Especially after hearing about his father's suicide bombing. I thought he might try bombing the bank. Although if he really wants the helmet itself, I don't suppose he'd take a chance of destroying it."

"We'd like to examine it."

Clare bit her lip.

"Would you give it back to me? I think it has only sentimental meaning for Ali. Of course not all of his sentiments should be encouraged. But I don't suppose there's any sort of code or vital messages hidden in it. And if it had an explosive it would have blown up by now."

"Of course. No explosives."

"Well, if you'll give it back to me when you're done with it."

"What bank is it in?"

"I could go with you and get it out."

"You could. Or you could just give us the key to the box."

Clare assumed that if she refused to let them have the helmet, they'd find a legal way to get access to the bank deposit box, so there was no point in dragging things out.

"I'll want a receipt. And I want to go talk to Sheriff Matheson first. You want to go with me or wait here? I'll only be a few minutes."

"We'll wait."

"You can wait in the café across the street, if you want. Have some of their pie. It's good."

They agreed to get pie while Clare locked her office and pointed them toward the café before walking to the sheriff's office.

"Hi, Sheriff Matheson. I see you called the FBI and CIA. They act fast, don't they?"

"What?"

"One of each showed up in the shop a few minutes ago. Together. Said they're going to investigate the mosque Ali goes to, and also his foreign contacts. I suppose that means checking out his phone and his computer. You got his phone. Did you give it to them already?"

"No. I did call but... what are their names?"

"Um, John Gibbs and Raymond Marsh. Came down from Cleveland."

"Really?"

"They said they already talked to you, or maybe they meant Ali, so I just told them more or less what I told you. They don't want Ali, they want to examine the helmet. I told them it wasn't in the Greenline bank anymore."

"Nobody talked to me or to him. No one's been here. I called in my reports yesterday but haven't heard back. Didn't think they'd be so slow."

"Well, here they are."

"Yeah, here they are. But where are they? They did not talk to me."

"In the café."  
"Let's go over there and you can introduce me."

When they got to the café, there was no sign of either man.

"Maybe they went to the john," the sheriff said.

Jeanette said no one like that had come in, but she saw two men in suits get in a car together and drive away.

"What the hell?" Sheriff Matheson pulled off his hat and scratched his head. "John Gibbs and Raymond Marsh, huh? Which one said he was FBI and which one CIA?"

"Gibbs was FBI and Marsh was CIA, I think."

"They show you ID?"

"Uh, no. After yesterday, I just assumed... I did think it was unusual that they would travel together."

"Well, it might could happen. But I don't think they were who they said they were. They said they talked to me, which they didn't. No IDs. And now they're gone. What did they look like?"

"Oh, dark hair, both of them. Maybe sort of Mediterranean looking. Sounded like they could have been from the East. I mean New York, Boston, New Jersey."

"I don't suppose anyone got a license plate number. Why would you. I'm going back to make some more phone calls. Did you tell them which bank you moved the helmet to?"

"No, not even the city."

"Have you told anyone else besides me and Clench?"

"No, I don't think I did."

"Don't."

Clare went back to her office and locked herself in. This incident increased her nervousness quotient by maybe 50%. Ali's direct assaults didn't really bother her much, but this was something else. Creepy. Who were those guys and how did they get here? Did Ali make his one phone call? To whom? They might have tried to kidnap her and force her to take them to the bank. She pulled out the revolver she kept in her office now. She had one gun in her car and the rest at home in various locations. She'd better start remembering them from now on, after all the trouble she'd taken to get licensed to carry.

Why would they want the helmet anyway, if it was just a family heirloom? Maybe it reflected on the honor of Iranians everywhere, or at least Muslims. But Clare knew from her online research that many Indo-Persian helmets were in existence and resided with collectors, museums, and antiquarians of all kinds. No one was trying to steal all those, were they?

And she told them what Jennifer Ebrahim had told her, that her husband blew himself up in Iran. Maybe that wasn't known at their mosque, but Clare thought that odds were they all knew it. So presumably Jennifer was safe. She ought to call her.

"Hello, Jennifer? This is Clare Bower."

She explained about the phony FBI and CIA men.

"Would they be men from your mosque, trying to get the helmet?"

"I don't know why anyone would want to do that. And without seeing the men I wouldn't even guess."

"Well, they were both sort of medium height, and looked like they could possibly have been from the Middle East, but no foreign accents, and of course I didn't suspect they were not who they said they were until they disappeared."

"Hm. I don't have any idea."

"You'll let me know if anyone unfamiliar talks to you?"

"Sure."

"And there's something else I wanted to ask you about. I hope I'm not being presumptuous, but I was wondering if you intend to continue running the carpet store. Or Ali?"

"I haven't decided. It's mine now. You know, I'm not sure Mo knew what he was going to do before he made that last trip. He didn't make a will, for instance. He could have left the store and everything to Ali, but he didn't have a will, so I inherited. I don't think I'll keep the store because I certainly don't intend to go back to make those buying trips to Iran and Turkey, and I wouldn't send Ali to do it. So I've been thinking about selling but haven't done anything yet."

"I thought I could make you an offer for the carpets and any other things you might have to sell."

"Oh. Well, why not? Let me talk to the lawyer, the one who handled Mo's business affairs, and get back to you."

"OK, thanks. I'll call you if I hear anything else here about Ali. And I'd appreciate it if you'd keep me informed about anything you find out up there. I have a feeling we'll be hearing from the actual FBI and CIA."

# Chapter 26: Enter Adeleh

Clare managed to get some work done before lunch, when she found Clench in the café. She realized that she hadn't seen or talked to him for a day but it seemed like ages. This is getting bad, she told herself.

He already knew about the fake feds, and she told him about her conversation with Jennifer.

"So you're going into the rug trade?"

"No. I'll sell her rugs if I get them, but then it's back to Sears rugs. Although I haven't actually ordered any so far. I'll have to look into them."

"It looks like Ali will be locked up for a while. There won't be any bail until the feds investigate. He'll be moved to a federal facility. We're not really set up for long-term care."

"Can they do that? Keep him locked up on a minor assault charge?"

"Yes. For one thing, we learned that when Ali made his phone call, he didn't call a lawyer, he called some number that probably brought those two guys in suits down here. We don't know who they are or if that's who he called, but that's enough to tie things up for a while. So he didn't call a lawyer, but maybe they'll send a lawyer for him, but he didn't call one or ask for one. They didn't go visit him while they were there so it didn't do him much good. Anyway, the thing about the law is, let's say he has a right to be released on bail. I'm guessing his mother won't put up the bail but someone probably would. But while everyone's trying to figure out what's legal, time moves on and he gets moved around but not released. For example, that poor SOB who made that video that they blamed Benghazi on is still in prison."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, things are more fluid than you would think. Sometimes it helps and sometimes it doesn't."

"So that means sometimes I get to be hopeful and sometimes I get to be cynical?"

"Yes, that's so."

"But Ali will be locked up for a while. I wish I knew for how long. You know, I've never talked to him. It might be pointless, but I'd like to talk to him. Would I be allowed to, while you've got him?"

"You could ask the sheriff. Or I could when I go back after lunch. When do you want to talk to him?"

"Well, as soon as possible, I guess, because he could be taken out of town any time."

"OK, you just go back with me and ask the sheriff."

Sheriff Matheson had no objections, though he said Ali was complaining that he needed a prayer rug and a Koran.

"I told him he could use the blanket, and figure out which direction to point, and he should have been carrying his own Koran. I told him a Christian criminal wouldn't go anywhere without his Bible. Ha ha! But talk to him if you want to. There's no special room, you'll just have to stand outside the cell, or get a chair if you want. But out of arm's reach. I'll keep the outer door open so it's not going to be exactly a private conversation."

"That's OK."

Clare expected an angry, sulky teenager and that's what she got.

"Hello, Ali. You know who I am, don't you?"

He looked at her.

"You're the one who stole my helmet," he practically growled.

"I didn't steal it. Let's be clear about the law. It was in the trash pick-up, and it's common and not illegal for people to take things from the trash. Furthermore, legally it belonged to your mother."

"Everything is not about the law."

"That's true. But your mother had reason not to want it around, you know."

"I am the man of the house now."

"It doesn't necessarily work that way in America. We respect our elders, for one thing."

Clare wondered where these words came from. Her grandparents? Suddenly these old truisms were solid truths in her mind and heart.

"Elders are not always right."

"Yeah, but you definitely aren't right. Attacking your mother that way in Starbucks. Shame!" Clare was feeling more and more like one of her grandparents. Or maybe Aunt Del was speaking through her, though she hadn't been around Del enough to see situations that would have called on Del to put her foot down with young'ns, as she called them.

"She was bringing shame to our family!"

"Shame only comes from what you do and say yourself. What comes out of you."

Something else echoed in the back of Clare's mind, about what comes out of the mouth that defiles a man. Where did that come from?

"Anyway, I've moved the helmet someplace safe, far away. You'd best rethink whatever you might be planning about the helmet, and about imitating your father."

"My father was a hero."

"Not in my book."

"The book of an infidel whore!"

Clare forgot why she wanted to talk to this boy. She reminded herself that he was a man, not a boy, and dangerous.

"Did you call those two men who came to my store this morning pretending to be feds? Who were they?"

Before Ali could reply, the sheriff walked in and Clare assumed he was going to say her time was up. Instead he ushered in a young girl. She looked about 15, a thin, pretty girl who looked nervous. Adeleh was dressed as a typical American girl, no hijab. She had with somewhat Semitic features and blonde hair.

"Adeleh!" Ali said. "What are you doing here? Where have you been?"

"I came to see you. I read about what happened."

"Did you go home? Are you coming home? Did you see Mom?"

"No. I just came to see you. You're locked up."

"Yes, these dogs locked me up. Can you help me?"

"Do you have a lawyer?"

"No. Not yet."

"Did you call one?"

"No."

"Well, I can't help you. Unless you want me to bring you some food or clothes."

"Yes. I don't know how long I'll be in this pigsty."

Adeleh looked around. The cell was actually fairly clean and decent, though not comfortable.

"When can you come back and bring me clothes and something to eat that's halal?"

"Tomorrow."

"Call first. Maybe I won't be here."

"OK, I will."

She left without trying to give her brother a kiss or a pat through the bars. Maybe the sheriff had told her to keep her distance also. Maybe the girl didn't want to get that close. Clare wouldn't put him past grabbing someone for a hostage. She ran out after the girl.

"Adeleh, could I speak to you? I know your mother."

The girl stared at her then nodded. They walked out past the sheriff and Clench.

"Have you eaten? Can I buy you something to eat?"

"I am hungry."

So it was back to the Greenline Café.

"You could take Ali something from here before you go get his clothes."

"He wants something halal. That means permissible under Islamic rules. I will bring him some clean clothes but I don't care whether he follows Sharia rules or not, so I won't bring him food. He can eat what's put in front of him."

The girl had a faint twinge of an Appalachian accent, which made Clare think she was hiding out with relatives of her mother someplace in the mountains. It was easy to pick up little tricks of speech quickly, especially when you wanted to fit in a new place. Eat what's in front of you was definitely a rule of Appalachian families.

"I met your mother because I wanted to know about the helmet after Ali tried to steal it twice. Do you know about that?"

"Yes, she told me all about it."

"I know about her sending you away after your father died, and about Ali trying to... boss you around. Were you in Akron earlier today?"

"No. I... my mom sent me to live with some relatives out of state. When I heard Ali was in jail I drove up because I want to see her, but I thought I could see Ali on the way. As long as he's locked up. I miss my mother. I can't stay there though. I don't know how long he'll be locked up. I'm worried about her too."

"Naturally."

"In fact I'm not even going to our house. We're going to meet somewhere else, not even in Akron. And then I throw away my cell phone and buy a new one. I'm telling you because my mother said she trusts you, and you're the only person she's talked to about... everything. But I don't trust Ali's friends from the mosque. I don't want to see anybody we know. It's not just Ali. I was scared before when my father wanted to arrange a marriage for me with someone from Iran, someone I didn't know. An older man. Ali wants the same thing."

"Are you... Muslim?"

"Ali and I were Muslim since birth, you might say. But I'm out."

"That's dangerous, isn't it?"

"Oh yeah. I mean, maybe I'd like it as a religion if I knew anything about it, like the theology, but I don't want them telling me who I have to marry, and making me wear the hijab, and all that. I haven't read the Koran, I've just heard it read in Arabic, which I never learned. I loved my dad, until I turned 13 and he started thinking about marrying me off. Everything changed, and he and my mom started having arguments. You could say Ali is going our father's way and I'm going my mother's way. Which is easier now."

Clare knew the usual "all married couples fight" wouldn't work here. Their disagreements were not apt to be solved by counseling.

"Well, I suggest you get on the road and meet with your mother. Here's my phone number. Call me or text if I can help. And don't forget, you can always call 911."

"Thank you."

"And if you decide you don't want to see Ali tomorrow, I can take the clothes to him."

"OK." The girl seemed to be relieved at this. She ate quickly then drove away.

# Chapter 27: Greenline Station

The next day, in her office with the door closed, Clare tried to focus on her own business again. The train depot, for starters. The city was going to let her have the use of it when the train tracks opened again. She wasn't sure if the tracks would function as a siding or continue in both directions to the next towns, plus a siding by the station for unloading. One siding would be enough, if it were long enough. She restricted Sears house sales to one a day, and people had 24 hours to unload, so they had to schedule pickups in advance. She gave some leeway for lateness but they couldn't allow box cars to pile up.

She wanted the depot for more office space, but that was really just because she liked the late-19th century building. She didn't need more office space and it wouldn't really be efficient to split up her work in different buildings. Keeping all the Sears kit house paperwork in one spot was just a matter of files cabinets and computer memory. What else could she do with the depot?

Unless they kept late hours, another food service couldn't provide anything that the Greenline Café couldn't, unless volume doubled, which was possible. The Rendezvous covered as much bar business as the town wanted in the city limits. As for a possible ice cream/coffee shop, that was not her line at all. She had no intention of trying her hand at the food service business. The city might rent the depot out to someone else for that.

What this town needs, Clare thought, is a nice little wine bistro. Something... urban. Urbane. Sophisticated. Open past 8 p.m. Maybe a little jazz combo, if there was anything other than bluegrass and country to be found in the county. There were already plenty of bluegrass and country venues within an hour's drive in any direction. Maybe outdoor seating. The Rendezvous was all right for the occasional drink with an date but it wasn't the kind of place she felt comfortable going in alone or taking a friend like Roxy to, for instance.

Light bulbs went on over her head like strings of Christmas lights. Clench and his father were planning a winery. The grapes wouldn't be ready for a couple of years, but maybe they'd like to have this little spot, unless they were planning to open a place right on the farm, as wineries usually did. Maybe they could do both. Maybe she could get the use of the depot and hold on to it until they were ready, if they wanted to use the depot, that is. Until their own vineyard was productive, they could specialize in Ohio wines.

Greenline Station. Nice name. Take the last train to Greenline, and I'll meet you at the station... Clare hummed along to the Monkees song now stuck in her head for the rest of the day. Did Clench write songs as well as play banjo? She could ask him to write a song to that tune, Last Train to Clarksville. Of course it would be easy for any band just to substitute Greenline for Clarksville, but maybe he could add some new lyrics just for Greenline. It was a pretty, romantic song but kind of sad. His song could be about a couple meeting at the station to stay, not to part.

Clare daydreamed about the partings and meetings that had taken place at the depot for decades, through several wars. Lucky the building hadn't been demolished yet. She needed to get busy on her plan before someone flattened the building.

It occurred to her that if the tracks were reopened for through traffic, maybe they could organize scenic train rides with dinner on board. Who? Not me, Clare told herself. There was at least one such excursion she knew of, in northern Ohio, maybe more. They could have fall leaf-peeper tours and stops at historical sites. Maybe go down by the Ohio River.

Everybody loves a train, she thought. If the track were re-opened, it ran close enough to her house that she would be able to hear the train whistle if she were at home, which was fine with her, even if it was in the middle of the night. It was like the rain hitting the roof.

Thinking about trains and lovers at the station and rain on the roof almost put her to sleep at her desk.

A tap at the door made her sit up straight.

What next, she thought.

"Come on in."

Sandy said, "Bad news. The house kit was stolen off the siding."

"Oh no. I was just thinking about opening the tracks in Greenline, so the deliveries would be closer. I thought they'd be safe in Chillicothe. But the box cars were on the siding all night, weren't they?"

"Yeah."

"At least it's all insured. Did you tell the customer?"

"Not yet."

"They come pretty quick so we'll just re-order and they'll just have to wait a few more days for their dream house. Give them a call. No, I'll call. Does that station have security cameras?"

"Uh, I don't know. I'll ask."

"I thought they'd have a night guard at a freight station. I wonder if it would be better to ship those kits by truck?"

"Trucks could be robbed too."

"Yes. And truck drivers won't want to hang around, they want to unload and move on to the next load. But box cars you can leave on a siding for a while. Those cars have been unloading into trucks. When's Jackson coming in next?"

"Should be here with a delivery this afternoon."

"OK. I want to ask him if the customers could pick up their houses at the point of shipment."  
"What do you want to bet he'll say no?"

"I'll ask him anyway, then figure out what to do. Meanwhile, I've got to talk to the sheriff. Again."

Clare called the customer first and told him his shipment would be delayed. Fortunately the trucks hadn't left yet to pick up the house kit at the station and he was able to reschedule, so he wasn't too disgruntled. Clare didn't tell him the shipment was stolen. She decided to talk to Sheriff Matheson before calling the Chillicothe station.

"Now what," he said when Clare walked in. Clench was there with him.

"Well, it didn't happen in Greenline."

When she finished telling him about the theft, the sheriff said, "I know it's your business but like you said, it didn't happen here. So you're thinking of getting a track reopened here and taking these shipments here?" He frowned.

"Yeah, I was. Maybe we — I could get better security than they have in Chillicothe. But I'd like to find out who did this before moving any further with the railroad company. If possible."

"Good idea. Don't get me wrong, your business has done this town a lot of good. But before you came, all we had was drunk driving and a little drug traffic and small robberies." The sheriff would not admit to anyone that he felt somewhat revitalized professionally by having Ali in his lockup. But that was only because they caught him. If he'd gotten away again, it would be different.

"Anyway, you'd best talk to them in Chillicothe and I'll call them over there too."

"If you want to go to Chillicothe, I'll drive you," Clench said. "We can talk to the stationmaster and the police too."

"OK. I want to see if they have surveillance tapes."

"OK, let's go."

Once again Clare informed her staff that she was going out of town and should be back that evening before the store closed.

# Chapter 28: Crime Scene

On the way to Chillicothe in Clench's pickup, Clare told him about her idea for turning the Greenline depot into a little wine bistro.

"Even if the tracks don't reopen, I think it's a great idea."

"You think you might give up the railroad siding idea because of this theft?"

"Oh no, I think this is a one-time thing. I mean, I know we'll find out who did it and it won't keep happening. There's bound to be theft once in a while. Of course the business with Ali and the helmet is unusual but that doesn't mean I'm closing shop."

"Of course not. Well, I'll think about the depot. Talk to my dad about it. We're going to open a shop and have tastings but didn't really think about anything like a bistro. It's OK to have customers and tourists come but we don't want people hanging around to drink. They don't necessarily go to wineries to drink, though, except for the ones looking for lots of free samples. But using the depot sounds like a good idea. If the right person runs it. We wouldn't want to run a bar or café but maybe someone in the family would be right for it. Maybe my brother and sister. I guess you don't want to?"

"No. But I'd like to have a place like that in town."

They found the freight stationmaster, who said they did indeed have security cameras. He had viewed the tapes and would be happy to show them to Clench and Clare. The outdoor station lights had been broken but the street lights provided some illumination as the thieves unloaded. The box cars had been shunted to a siding, and once the engine and the rest of the train cars left the station, the box cars were left beside a warehouse but not unloaded. The siding ran between the warehouse and a street, so the cars were unloaded into trucks by six men. It took a long time to unload all the parts for a house, even a small house, into two big trailers. Two of the men were wearing suits but even they did some work.

"Wait a minute," Clare exclaimed. "Is it possible to focus in on faces?"

"Yeah, but it might not be real sharp. Who do you want to look at?"

"The two guys in suits."

The stationmaster made some adjustments and enlarged first one, then the other face. They were not very clear but Clare thought she recognized them.

"I think those might be the two men who came into the store impersonating an FBI and a CIA man. They didn't change their clothes. I think that's them. They both had dark hair and these men in the video seem to be about the same height and build as those two guys."

"Can you get a license plate from these tapes? We've got a couple of semis plus a car. Did you see the car your guys came in, in Greenline?"

"No, I wasn't paying attention. And no one got license plate numbers anyway. But Jeanette, the waitress, noticed them driving away so she might remember what the car looked like, maybe even the make and model. I could call her."

"I guess they don't have a night guard at that station?" Clench asked.

The stationmaster admitted they didn't. "It's not unusual for shipments to load or unload at night in the warehouse but the freight isn't usually the kind of things people want to steal even for pawn or fencing. There aren't any houses nearby. The other businesses nearby are closed at night. So we rely on cameras, but that's just after the fact, of course. There's no one watching. We've never had a big loss like this, though. Sometimes a warehouse worker will pilfer something during the day. Of course we've only been getting these big house shipments this year. Never before that."

"Well, someone might steal a house for themselves," Clare said. "But it seems more likely that someone would steal it to sell. Considering the price of houses, they could make a lot of money, even selling at a low price. And if they drive it to another state or a few states over, probably there would be no questions and they'd make a lot of money even with the cost of trucking."

"But who would do it? Someone who knows about your business? Who knows your delivery schedule? And if these are the same guys, why would they want the helmet?" Clench said.

"A lot of people know about my business and the Sears kit houses. I have hundreds of customers, some of them from out of state."

"Well, there are six men in that video. Odds are that someone is stupid or careless. They knocked out the outdoor station lights but not the camera. They're not wearing masks. They're wearing gloves because they're doing heavy work, so I guess they wouldn't have to think about fingerprints. Doesn't look like they took off the gloves to bust the locks on the box cars."

"I suppose the Chillicothe police looked around, but I'd like to take a look too," Clench said.

"Sure, no reason you can't," said the stationmaster.

Clare followed Clench out to the siding area. Clench bent over and looked at the warehouse door, the tracks, the ground. There were no footprints because it was all gravel.

"I need plastic bags and gloves out of my truck," he said.

Clare volunteered to go get them while he kept searching. When she returned he put on plastic gloves and picked up cigarette butts and dropped them into separate plastic bags.

"Lucky some of these guys smoke."

"Maybe the cigarette butts are old," Clare suggested.

"Maybe, but I saw a couple of the guys smoking on the tape."

"Did they have anything to drink? Cans of pop, bottles of water?"

"No beer or liquor?" Clench said, smiling.

"That's for after work," Clare said primly.

"Yeah, they were drinking something but it looked like some of them brought their own water bottles. They were big guys, have to be to do this job, so I'm thinking maybe they're gym rats and are used to carrying insulated water bottles, not the throw-away kind. Which your average thief does not. The guys in suits weren't that big."

"Most of them did look pretty big. But I'd be surprised if the gym rats smoked cigarettes."

"Well, here is a pop can. Not health pop. The local police weren't very thorough," Clench said. "Don't know how old this can is — it still has a little something in it." He started to shake it out on the ground then stopped. "I guess there's a chance of some DNA in the pop." He stuffed a plastic bag into the opening then put the can in another bag.

"Do you see anything else?" he asked Clare.

"Nothing that you didn't already get. Cigarette butts and a pop can." Clare wandered off the graveled track yard over to the street next to it and looked around. "It was kind of breezy last night, maybe something blew over here. Here's a piece of paper. You want to pick it up? I don't have gloves."

Clench picked it up and looked it. "Huh. A phone number. Akron area code." He dropped it into a plastic bag. "See anything else?"

"No. How were the station lights broken? I assume not with a gun, since somebody could have heard it even though this neighborhood is pretty dead at night. A rock?"

"There are plenty of rocks. Let's look around the lights."

"You don't expect to find fingerprints on the rocks, do you? Or maybe special light-breaking rocks imported from someplace else?"

"Smart ass. Sometimes I look for things that I don't know will be there. If I knew it all in advance there'd be no need to look."

"A good policy," Clare said.

"Well, no fancy rocks. If there's nothing else, let's take these to the police for fingerprinting and maybe DNA testing."

"OK. You mean here in Chillicothe?"

"Yeah, it happened here, we found everything here, and they'll have more facilities than Greenline, although they'll probably send it off someplace else anyway."

They found the police station, where Clench made a report and turned in all his plastic bags.

On the way home, Clare said, "I know someone could sell the stolen house kits for quite a bit of money. But why not just buy them from me and then sell them? The cost of trucking would be the same, and they'd still make a huge profit with no risk."

"Yeah, it doesn't make sense."

"Actually I've had a couple of requests from contractors to buy houses for resale, but when I found out I said no to selling in large quantities. The point is to give people a chance to buy their own house cheap. Of course most people want a builder to put their kit together, but then I can sell direct to the home buyer and let them get their own contractor. I do make a profit but it's still really cheap. So the thieves must be going to jack up the price really high."

"I wonder if the house will go up for sale advertised as a Sears kit house? If so, then it might be possible to trace the thieves that way."

"Maybe. If they're smart they won't do that."

"We could get some help there. Get Roxy and Jerry Jenkins to run stories asking people to keep an eye out for anything advertised as a Sears kit house or, um, an authentic art deco bungalow or anything like that."

"OK. Go to it oh jazzmen."  
"What?"

"Oh, it's a line from a poem by Carl Sandburg. I guess I'm tired. I've still got to make a report to Sheriff Matheson, and call this number you found."

Clare made a note to look it up later, and to call Jerry and Roxy.

# Chapter 29: Go To It

Back in Greenline, Clench dropped Clare off at The Rag and Bone Shop and drove on to the sheriff's office.

"Hey everybody," she said. "What's new? What's old?"

"Everything," Sandy said. "Actually Ed Bennett came in and did some shopping. He asked about the helmet again, and The Cellar."

"Oh yeah? When did he leave?"

"He didn't. You can probably catch him at the café."

Clare did indeed catch him at the café, after leaving phone messages for Roxy and Jerry Jenkins.

"Hi Ed, how are you?"

"Just fine. How about you?"

"Fine. Busy. Sandy said you asked about the helmet again, and about The Cellar. The Cellar still isn't open — I've been collecting a few things but you wouldn't believe how busy I've been, always getting interrupted." At this she took a sip of her coffee and gave Ed time to decide if he was business or if he was an interruption, although there was no necessity for her to go talk to him, other than the fact that she wanted some coffee and a meal anyway after the trip to Chillicothe. "But everything's going well and I have new plans in the works too. As for the helmet, I guess you read about the attempts to steal it?"

"Yes, I did. By someone from Akron."

"Yeah, a young fellow from one of the mosques. He's in jail as we speak."

Ed looked surprised. He lifted one eyebrow. He was good at that. He had the ability to raise either eyebrow independently, depending on which one faced the person he was aiming it at. Clare could only raise her left eyebrow, or else both at the same time.

"No, really?"

"Third time's a charm."

"So after all that you still don't want to sell it?"

"No. In fact it's in storage someplace far, far away. It's not in Greenline anymore. But it's not your kind of thing anyway, is it?"

"Not really, but it must be one or two centuries old, so that makes it my kind of thing."

"Yes, I suppose so."

"It's been so much trouble, and you can't sell it or display it, I don't understand why you want it."

"I'm not sure. Somehow I'm not done with it yet."

"I understand. Sometimes I get attached to an object. Or I want to learn more about it. Sometimes I just want to find out who wants to buy it at whatever ridiculous price I put on it."

Clare laughed. This was possibly the first time she'd ever enjoyed Ed's company.

"Or who wants to steal it," she added.

"Well, here's something you might like to know. Quite a few immigrants in and around Akron bring me things to sell on consignment. Artwork and jewelry and whatnot from the old country. Sometimes they buy each other's stuff. I've got Russians and Latin Americans and Asians and Africans and Indians and Middle Easterners and people from the Stans."

Clare became more alert.

"But no Canadians. Anyway, I've been putting out feelers to see if I could hear anything about your helmet. The story's been in the Beacon Journal more than once, you know. So I get into chitchat with the customers and everyone's interested in the story. A couple of people know the Ebrahims."

Clare raised her left eyebrow.

"Actually they may suspect that I bought it from you. And there was an idea that Mrs. Ebrahim sold it to you because she needed the money."

Clare shook her head.

"Of course they think the boy should have it."

"We've been through all that. I met Mrs. Ebrahim. And I talked to my lawyer about it, and we've all had to talk to the police. He's not getting it back. It belonged to his mother and she doesn't want it in the house. That is, she doesn't want Ali to have it."

"That's what they don't understand. Of course Mrs. E. isn't really one of them."

"That's right. She's from around here. She's an American. And Ali is supposed to be an American. He was born and raised here. Anyway, she's... she's trying to loosen what she thinks is an unhealthy interest in certain aspects of his heritage. That's all I can say now. Now you know and I know there's quite a lot of thievery in the antiques trade and the art world. Do you know of anybody who might be a little shady in the Muslim community? Not that I know of anything involving this helmet, outside of Ali."

"You mean you think Ali wanted to sell it? It's worth maybe a couple thousand, maybe more. But I haven't heard of anything that makes sense in connection with it."

"I don't think he wants to sell it. If you do hear anything at all... and I'm not just talking about money... I'd appreciate it if you'd tell me."

After Ed left, Clare went back to the store and made her calls to Jerry Jenkins and Roxy, and told them about the theft of the Sears house from the Chillicothe rail yard.

Jerry said the story would be in the Greenline Week, and did she have a picture of the house as it would look after construction.

"Yes, I've got a picture in the catalog if you want to come down to the store and photocopy it. Since you can't exactly get a scoop, being a weekly, could you get in touch with the Chillicothe and the Akron newspapers? And any others you think might be good? I'd sure like to get it back, and catch whoever did it."

"I'll do what I can. They'll print the story first but it will have my byline on it."

"Right."

Roxy also asked about pictures.

"But as you know by the time the next edition of the magazine comes out, you may have found it," she said.

"Yes, but even so, it might be helpful in preventing future thefts if people are aware that there are... house thieves. Who would have thought. Anyway, this one was a good-size house called the Magnolia from 1920, $6,488 not including tax. Ten-room colonial, two story, model number 2089. The number might be on a shipping label somewhere, if they don't remove it. I can e-mail you a copy of the catalog picture."

"Good. By the way, after you called me, I wanted to see where Jennifer Ebrahim was meeting her daughter. I drove over to her house so I'd get there about four hours after Adeleh left Greenline, and her car was in the driveway. So I waited to see if Adeleh would go there, but eventually Mrs. Ebrahim left and I followed her."

"She must think her house is being watched, and if it is, you could be followed too and she wouldn't be safe meeting the girl anywhere."

"Well, she went to a spa. A woman-only beauty emporium. So I went in and got a manicure, and so did she. The daughter showed up and then they both got pedicures. Seemed to be having a good time. They left together and got on the interstate, but at that point I didn't follow."

That night at home she poured herself a glass of wine and looked up "Go to it, O jazzmen," which turned out to be from a Sandburg poem called "Jazz Fantasia."

Drum on your drums, batter on your banjoes,  
sob on the long cool winding saxophones.  
Go to it, O jazzmen.

Sling your knuckles on the bottoms of the happy  
tin pans, let your trombones ooze, and go husha-  
husha-hush with the slippery sand-paper.

Moan like an autumn wind high in the lonesome treetops,  
moan soft like you wanted somebody terrible, cry like a  
racing car slipping away from a motorcycle cop, bang-bang!  
you jazzmen, bang altogether drums, traps, banjoes, horns,  
tin cans — make two people fight on the top of a stairway  
and scratch each other's eyes in a clinch tumbling down  
the stairs.

Can the rough stuff . . . now a Mississippi steamboat pushes  
up the night river with a hoo-hoo-hoo-oo . . . and the green  
lanterns calling to the high soft stars . . . a red moon rides  
on the humps of the low river hills . . . go to it, O jazzmen.

She wondered why Clench remembered that poem, or at least the one line. What made him remember it at just that moment. His name was sort of in the poem, maybe that was it. Can the rough stuff, and it could be a love poem.

# Chapter 30: Information Exchange

The next day, Clare managed to get some work done in the store before two more strangers rode into town, except they were no longer strangers. Jennifer and Adeleh Ebrahim drove in, and found Clare in The Rag and Bone Shop. Clare figured they must have spent the night someplace between Akron and Greenline. She hoped no one had followed.

"Oh, hello!" Clare said. "Don't you two look nice. I really need to get my nails done. So... you're here to visit Ali?"

"We brought him some clothes," Jennifer said.

"And halal food?"

No answer.

"Well, there's always pie from the Greenline Café. Does he have a lawyer yet? I have an idea that he didn't call a lawyer with his one phone call."

"We're going to visit him now."

Clare wondered if either of them would recognize the men from the surveillance tape. Clench had brought back a copy of the tape, and maybe they could take a look. He or the sheriff had probably showed it to Ali already.

This time Clare wasn't present during the exchange of information between the Ebrahims and the sheriff. Clench wasn't there, he was at work on the farm that morning. She hoped that he would find out what went on and tell her. She was beginning to feel like Nancy Drew, girl sleuth, poking around in the middle of criminal matters for which she had no expertise. It's every citizen's business, she told herself impressively. But especially hers when it was her stuff and herself being grabbed.

Jennifer and Adeleh stopped in the store again after leaving the sheriff's office, and were not averse to having pie and coffee.

"So, did Ali get a lawyer?" Clare asked.

"He seems to keep calling other people," Jennifer said. "Maybe he'll end up with the public defender. He does want to get out of jail but he doesn't seem to care how, or how soon. But Sheriff Matheson doesn't want him here indefinitely. At least he'd like to shift him to Akron, but this is where he assaulted you. I think I'd have to press charges to get him moved to Akron."

"I suppose you could get him a lawyer. But who is he calling?"

"I don't know if I want to pay for his lawyer. I'm doing him a big enough favor by not pressing charges. I don't know who he called. Anyway, the sheriff showed us the video of the theft at the Chillicothe station."

"Oh? I thought I recognized the two men wearing suits. They came in here the other day pretending to be from the FBI and CIA."

"They look familiar to me too."

"They don't go to your mosque, do they?"

"No. But I think I saw them talking to somebody outside the mosque once. And to Ali once."

"Do you know who they are?"

"Here's who I think they are. I think they work with the FBI. They are not FBI. They are Mafia."

"What?" Clare almost shouted.

"That's what I heard anyway. Well, Mo told me."

"How did he know them?"

"I'm not exactly sure. The FBI uses Mafia guys to, uh, interrogate people when the FBI doesn't want to get its hands dirty but they want results, so they make deals with the mob guys, who will do more than a little harmless waterboarding. So they've gotten involved with Al Qaeda prisoners. Not at Guantanamo. Along the way they've gotten to know other Muslims in custody in the U.S. They can blackmail them, and they can use them. Suppose a mob guy learns about plans to set off a bomb. He can give that information to the FBI. But if it serves his purposes, he won't. Or maybe they want to kill someone and they don't care about collateral damage. See, they can use jihadists to accomplish their goals with no risk. Like if they want to get inside a bank and rob it."

Clare started.

"It's a perfect match," Jennifer said sardonically. "Jihadists don't mind rubbing shoulders with the mob, because they think all Westerners, especially Americans, are corrupt anyway. So they think they can use the Mob, in spite of the torture. They actually respect them. And Mafia guys today are not like Michael Corleone, struggling immigrants and family men and patriots, if they ever were."

Clare was stunned at this intelligence, and at the idea that this ordinary looking, affluent woman of Akron could know so much about the inside of crime. Could it be true? And if it were true, was Ali somehow involved with the Mafia? Al Qaeda she could believe, or whatever form Al Qaeda chose to appear in, or disappear in, at any given moment. But she'd never heard of any connection between the Mafia and jihadists. Well, it would hardly be on the news, would it?

But it explained why the two men in suits looked as if they might be from the Middle East; they might be Italian.

"Why would they want the helmet?"

"Maybe to influence Ali for some reason."

"And why would they want the Sears house?"

"Money."

"Seems like it's too much work for the money. So big and bulky. Drugs, prostitution, and gambling are easier."

"It might be low-level guys trying to get a reputation and make a little money. I don't know."

Clare was suddenly horrified by the idea that mobsters might show up at her store, demanding protection money.

"Uh, Ali doesn't know where you're staying now, does he, Adeleh?" Clare asked.

"No. He wanted to know if I'm going back home but I said no and then he wanted to know where I'm living and how I knew where he was. I just said I called Mom and she told me to meet her in Greenline. But he thinks Mom doesn't know where I'm living."

"So you're not going back to Akron when school starts?"

"No."

"Well, don't tell me. Then the Mafia won't be able to force it out of me." She laughed but no one else did.

"They're not interested in Adeleh," Jennifer said seriously. "But Ali... he could be used, and if they would do anything to her, Ali wouldn't cooperate with them. He might kill her to save his honor, but he wouldn't do what they wanted."

Clare was horrified that Jennifer Ebrahim could talk calmly about these possibilities in front of her daughter. But the girl must have been long familiar with this reality.

"I suggest you both take a concealed carry class," she said.

Clare was feeling as if she'd tumbled into a snake pit, after the magical rabbit hole of her aunt's mysterious Sears catalogue collection.

"Suppose Ali gets out of jail. Which he will. What do you think is going to happen? It seems like Adeleh can't come home. And I don't see how you can keep living with him comfortably, Jennifer. Do you think after time he will mellow out and not be a threat?"

"Mo didn't. He did the reverse of mellowing, even though we had a happy marriage and children and a good business, no worries. I don't know," she said sadly. "I don't think they have interventions for jihadist radicalization."

"This might be the time to organize a service like that," said the ever-entrepreneurial Clare.

"Some kind of, uh, apostasy protection program might be more useful," Jennifer said. "Give people who want out a new identity and place to live."

Chapter 31:

The shop was closed on Sunday and Clare stayed home for once. She was not as relaxed as usual in the old house, but her practical and optimistic nature took over. She made some cornbread from scratch, her own concoction with sage, onions, black pepper, corn, and pork rinds. It was good with beer.

The Mafia would probably not come to her store and demand protection money. They tended to live and work in cities. Greenline was too far to drive.

If she had a railroad track opened in Greenline, she could hire an armed guard, and she could insist that customers schedule a pickup from the freight cars as soon as they arrived. No overnights.

Ali was a bigger problem. Since he knew that the helmet wasn't in Greenline anymore, maybe he'd give up. She hoped he wouldn't threaten her personally. But he was trouble any way you looked at it. If his mother seemed rather hard, it could only be because years of soft affection did not seem to touch him.

Reducing the problem to its simplest elements, Clare could only think of two possibilities. Ali must change, or he must go away.

He couldn't be locked up indefinitely. When he got out, he would continue to be a torment to his mother. Maybe he'd go back to college in the fall, and he'd go back to the mosque, and he'd go back to the friends who'd been influencing him — and his father. What could stop his trajectory toward some horrendous act of violence? Only an inner conversion, an epiphany, and that was not something anyone could engineer. American boys sometimes got hustled out of trouble by joining the military, but that was the last place Ali should be. Sending him to his father's relatives in Iran would be disaster, though it might keep his mother safe... but only if she never knew what happened to him after he went away.

Was there something Clare could engineer? She couldn't change him. Was there anyplace he could go, or be made to go, or want to go?

He might want to go to Iran, but that was out. Who could make a young man of 19 go anywhere he didn't want to? Even if you could do it, you couldn't stop him from coming back or going someplace else.

She drank some more beer.

She needed Aladdin's magic genie. Ali thought he already had the magic lamp in the form of the helmet. Without the helmet, perhaps he would not take action. Here was a case where you didn't want to convince him that he "always had the power inside him all along."

The closest thing to a genie Clare knew was Jackson.

Jackson.

Where did he come from and where did he go?

Could he take Ali with him?

Jackson was due in town with a delivery tomorrow, Monday. There was never any way to contact him except in person, when he drove into Greenline. She had to make sure that Ali was still there Monday. But there was no reason to think Jackson would take him. Couldn't hurt to ask.

Clare would have to call Clench and tell him of her idea to send Ali away to a magical unknown land, so the sheriff could keep Ali locked up until Jackson took him away. Yeah, right.

He could be released into someone else's custody or on his own recognizance. His mother didn't particularly want custody of him at the moment, and was not able to monitor his movements or, seemingly, to influence him. There was no reason for him to be released in custody of a stranger, though his mother might not mind, if Clare explained it to her. Or at least explained some of it, since most of Jackson's story was unbelievable. Or if he were released on his own recognizance, on bail, she and Jackson and Clench could see that he was kidnapped and taken away in one of Jackson's many Sears delivery vans. Would they? And if Jackson took him away, where would he be? Someplace he couldn't get back from, unless Jackson brought him back?

 See my book, _The Man from Scratch_ , for the story of Roxy's cloning adventure.
