Whack Job by Mike Baron Page A

other poopsies and one-night stands through friends, gossip, the occasional tabloid, but Sam was beloved by his constituents and could do no ill. Sally Crandall, Pendragon’s girl in D.C., had been the best of the bunch. Stella had met Sally at some soiree six months ago and liked her immediately. She instinctively knew that Sally was Sam’s latest squeeze.
    Well who could blame him, with Crystal’s wild mood-swings and days in bed for fibromyalgia. Stella was glad Sam had Sally. He should have married her in the first place. Oh well. Hindsight was 20/20, as Sam endlessly told her.
    Samisms #1 and #2 were: Attitude is everything. Character is destiny.
    “Yes, Sam,” she said to the gray rock. Out of the city it was cooler and she had the windows open, noting the subtle change in the air itself with the first hint of pine sneaking in. On this sunny Tuesday in late June, the river was a rolling party, blue helmeted rafters battling rapids with yellow paddles, kayaks rushing by. Most of the riverside picnic grounds, Ouzel, Dutch George, had already begun to fill with fugitives from the city setting up their barbecue. Anglers stood knee deep in the furious water, casting flies.
    Stella found the turn-off to Otto’s place just past Pingree Park. A plank bridge lay over the river. On the other side was a line-up of seventeen mailboxes affixed to a stand made of two-by-fours, and a chain suspended between two steel poles sunk in concrete deep into the ground, held shut with a padlock.
    Stella turned the engine off. She got out, took a drink of water, and looked at the mailboxes. Twelve of them had names. None said White. She looked around. The mountains rose steeply to the southwest, covered with a mottled mantle of Kelly green and bark beetle brown. The land retained enough moisture so that the fire level was moderate. Overhead an eagle circled pursued by several ravens. Otherwise not a soul.
    Stella wondered what to do. She could leave the Jeep and hike in, but it was about six miles and none of it was easy. She wasn’t certain she was up to that kind of challenge despite her daily rigorous workouts at Gold’s in Silver Spring. She heard the sound of a transmission grinding gears and seconds later a blue Ford 150 with some kind of lab mix in the bed pulled around the curve up to the chain and stopped.
    The gnarled homunculus who stepped out looked like a stick figure on whom someone had draped coveralls and a John Deere cap. The old dude went up to the padlock and looked at Stella.
    “Mornin’. Help you?”
    “I’m looking for Otto White. I’m Stella Darling.”
    The man proffered a hand that seemed to belong to a larger man. “Wayne Winslett. White. White. I know just about everybody on the mountain but our mystery man, drives some sort of Transformers truck, got a German shepherd. That him?”
    “That’s Otto.”
    “Never said word one to me. Friendly enough, but like many people up this way, they live up here for a reason. However, you don’t look like a Fed or a lawyer.”
    Stella blushed and smiled. “I’d appreciate it if you’d let me in, Mr. Winslett. We’re old friends. I would have contacted him if there were any way, but Otto doesn’t have a phone. He doesn’t have a computer. I don’t think he even has electricity.”
    Winslett unlocked the padlock and let the chain fall to the ground with a clank. “Go on ahead. I’ll lock up.”
    Stella gave Winslett her jury-winning smile. “Thank you.”
    She got in the Jeep and drove through the steel poles following the rutted rocky trail as it wound upwards. She shifted to lower case four-wheel drive, grateful for the seatbelt that prevented her slamming her head into the headliner as she clambered
    over gully-wumpers and hassock-sized rocks. It was slow going. The trail switch-backed up the mountain and now the scent of pine was everywhere.
    “You smell that, honey?” Sam asked her on one of their hikes. “That’s the smell of money. That’s what