His female partner’s look saddened, and said, “That’s too bad,” totally glossing over the fact that the dear old lady once strangled another woman to death.
Veronica and Zach looked at each other. Sure, she was well past her expiration date, and if we’re all day-to-day, then Rose was minute-by-minute. But this couldn’t be a coincidence.
After scarfing down the remainder of their eggs, they headed to Zach’s car—a silver Audi—and took off for Long Island.
“A German car?” Veronica asked with a half-smile.
“All that stuff your friend Eddie said …”
“I was just teasing—I trust you. You wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. And for the record, I’m not sure I’d consider Eddie a friend at the moment.”
Zach drove, while Veronica manned the radio. She searched for news on Rose Shepherd, but it was election, election, election. Things were not looking good for Theodore Baer, and the talking heads were predicting a landslide for Kingston. “Amazing what a difference twenty-four hours can make,” one analyst said. “Tell me about it,” Veronica muttered.
They drove onto Sprain Brook Parkway, before merging onto the Hutch. An hour later, they arrived in the quaint village of King’s Point, which sat on the tip of the Great Neck Peninsula. It was filled with palatial estates, wooded parks, and breathtaking water views. It was also the home of the Heyman Funeral Home, which was located in an old colonial house with a white picket fence. Where suburbia comes to die.
While Zach was studying photo after photo last night, something had caught his eye—a photo from the funeral of Ellen’s “chosen” son Josef.
On the surface, it wasn’t very helpful—they didn’t know Josef’s alias, where he’d lived, and so on. But one of the mourners attracted Zach’s attention. Not who he was, or what he looked like. It was what he held in his hand. A paper program.
In memoriam.
Using a trick TJ taught him, Zach was able to blow the photo to a larger size, while still maintaining clarity, so they could read the writing on the program.
It didn’t give the name the deceased used, but it did give the next best things. Where it took place—the Heyman Funeral home. The city—Kings Point. And the date—September 18, 1972. When they checked, the place was still in business.
They were met in the lobby by a short, chatty woman named Maureen. When she inquired why they were interested in a forty-year-old funeral, Zach made up a story about finding photos in Ellen’s room at Sunshine Village after her death. They were from a memorial service, and listed the date and location of the service, but no name. They wanted to give them to the deceased’s family.
It was a flimsy story, but Maureen bought it. Funeral homes were probably not hotbeds for underworld conspiracies and she had no reason to be suspicious.
She led them to the Records Room, providing a quick tour along the way.
Just in case they die today,
Veronica guessed, which wasn’t looking that far-fetched the way things were going. There were three chapels, all empty. This made Veronica feel better.
The less death today, the better
.
They arrived at a small office full of metal file cabinets. Maureen disappeared into a sea of files, while Veronica and Zach waited outside.
Maureen returned about ten minutes later. She had a smile on her face, but Veronica was wary of it. It was similar to Maggie’s “gotchya” look.
“This isn’t about a photo, is it?” she said, eyes latched onto Zach.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re a reporter, aren’t you?”
He hemmed and hawed, before coming clean. “Yes, why do you ask?”
“Because the only funeral that day was for Joseph Kingston, and I’m guessing that you’re doing a story on his son, being what today is and everything.”
“I’m not following,” Veronica said.
“Joseph Kingston’s son is Jim Kingston—you know, the guy running for president.”
Jamie fired the gun at the armed guard. Another direct hit. A second guard thought he could sneak behind him, but Jamie was too smart for that. He turned and fired—two more down—and he yelled out in exuberance. It was hard work saving humanity, but it sure was a lot of fun.
Maggie looked at him with big-sister disapproval. “You know Mom doesn’t let you play that game.”
Jamie didn’t take his eyes off the eighty-inch plasma screen gracing the wall of the room. It’s where he fought the battle for humanity on the game
Halo
that he played on his new Xbox, a gift from the kidnappers.
Jamie dramatically craned his neck, purposely hamming it up. “I just looked—Mom’s not here. Too bad, so sad, for her.”
“I’m not one of your stupid friends, so don’t try to play me.”
He let out a frustrated sigh. “I keep asking you to play multi-player.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. So you think just because Mom’s not here you can get away with anything you want?”
Jamie killed a couple more Covenant Soldiers with a tactical grenade launch. He sighed again. “Why do you always try to ruin all the fun!?”
Maggie paced the room, looking for a way out. It might have been the most beautiful room she’d ever been in, but it was still a prison.
“Dad would know what to do if he was here,” she grumbled, just loud enough for Jamie, the Master Chief of the United Nations Space Command, to hear.
“If Dad was here he’d be all—
go to your room, do your homework, go to sleep.
He’d never let us stay up all night playing
Halo
and eating M&Ms … and on a school night!”
Jamie continued having success, killing another cybernetically enhanced Super Soldier. He was also dressed for success, wearing the tuxedo their kidnappers left out for him. Maggie refused to put on the dress they provided her, choosing to remain in her pajamas with a pair of crocs, although she did put Jamie’s oversized hoodie sweatshirt on over her top. She wanted to hide in it.
“You know that stupid game takes place in the 26
th
Century,” she said. “So if we don’t stop the Apostles, the Reich will only be halfway through their thousand years of terror by that time. That will be the real enemy taking over the earth.”
“Don’t you know I don’t care what you say?” He put the control down for a quick moment and put his hands over his ears. “Stop talking! Stop talking!”
"If you like that Xbox so much, why don’t you marry it?”
“Why don’t you marry TJ?”
“Right after you marry Haley Burkhardt.”
Jamie paused, looking defeated. “Hey—that’s not a fair one.”
“Can you just stop playing for a minute and help me figure a way out of here?”
“Don’t you get it—I don’t want to leave!”
She couldn’t take it anymore. She grabbed the controller out of his hand, and threw it across the room. Without Jamie’s expertise, the Master Chief was a sitting duck for the Covenant Soldiers and was ambushed.
“Hey—you made me die.”
“If you don’t help me, you really are going to die. We all will.”
“Uncle Eddie said I could play the game.”
“Uncle Eddie is a real asshole.”
“I’m going to tell him what you said.”
“I don’t care.”
Jamie jumped up on the bed and started screaming. “Uncle Eddie! Uncle Eddie!”
Maggie leaped on top of him and forcefully placed her hand over his mouth. But it was too late. The door opened and a man in a suit walked in.
But it wasn’t Eddie.
It was Jim Kingston.
The next president of the United States.
He looked the same as he did on the poster in Maggie’s room. His thick hair was stylishly parted to the side, and his boyish face was offset by a rock-solid jaw that looked to be carved from stone. He sounded the same as he did on television, with a perfect balance of comfort and passion in his tone. But to Maggie, he didn’t appear to be the same.
He looked at the bickering siblings and smiled. “I’m glad to see you’ve made yourself at home. This is now as much your home as it is mine.”
“This is not my home,” Maggie snapped back. “Where is my mom!?”
He looked her up and down. It made her feel icky. “The dress I gave you didn’t fit? Or if you didn’t like it, I can get you one you more approve of.”
“I wouldn’t like anything you gave me—where is my mom!?”
He smiled with amusement. It was condescending. He was everything she thought he wasn’t. “I know politics is fickle, but yesterday you were wearing my shirt to school, and today you want no part of me.”
“You’re just a typical politician who never listens—where is my mom!?”
“Your mother is fine,” he said and started to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Maggie snarled.
“It’s just that you remind me of
me
at your age.”
“I’m nothing like you.”
“They called it stubbornness,” he said, maintaining his smile—the one that always won over the voters. “But since I’m about to be elected president, they now say I have resolve. It’s all in the eye of the beholder, I guess.”
“You need a shower, you dirty Nazi,” Maggie shouted at the top of her lungs.
The insult didn’t dent his amusement. “I’ve been on the campaign trail for eighteen months, Maggie, so you’re going to have to do better than that. In fact, I received a letter from the head of a certain terrorist group this morning who called me a
Jew Loving Dead Man
, and then went into explicit detail of how they were going to behead me. Makes the Cheerios not go down real smooth.”
Maggie seethed. She remembered her mom telling her that
sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me
, after some kids had picked on her and she came home crying. She really wished she had some sticks and stones right now to throw in Kingston’s face. She wanted to hurt him.
He moved beside Jamie, who had resumed his game. “So how about you, Jamie?” he said and patted him on the head like their father used to do.
Jamie bubbled with excitement. “Xbox, M&M’s, and no school—what’s there not to like!?”
“So what game are you playing here?” he asked.
“It’s
Halo
,” Jamie stated enthusiastically, “It’s an intergalactic battle in the future. I’m in charge of the good guys, we’re fighting against the Covenant Soldiers—they’re the bad guys. They’re robots!”
“Wow,” Kingston acted interested, “So are you winning the war?”
Jamie sighed. “I’m not going to lie to you, it’s been a struggle.”
“A great man once said—those who want to live, let them fight, and those who do not want to fight in this eternal struggle do not deserve life.”
“So will you also be quoting Hitler in your acceptance speech tonight?” Maggie asked. “I think it would be fitting.”
He looked impressed. “I didn’t know they are teaching classics like
Mein Kampf
in school these days.”
“Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
“She always ruins all the fun,” Jamie interrupted, and handed the future president a controller. “Here—let’s play multi-player. I’m the Master Chief.”
“Until the votes come in tonight,” Kingston joked.
“You get to be Arbiter.”
“Arbiter?”
“The leader of the Alien Elite—they broke away from the Covenant. We are going to fight together to take them down.”
“Arbiter was given the rank by the high prophet because it was a time of extraordinary circumstances,” Maggie added, “You know, he was
chosen
.”
Jamie became annoyed with the distraction, tapping Kingston on the arm to get his attention. “Your weapons are holstered on your back. You have grenades and a whole bunch of other cool stuff.” Then he had an epiphany, “Oh, I totally forgot, in this version there’s this cool weapon where you can make the enemy believe the wrong stuff. I love tricking people and then taking their stuff.
Halo-2
didn’t have that feature.”
“Sound familiar?” Maggie asked.
Kingston didn’t respond, he was too busy being educated by Professor Jamie. “Watch—I’m going to fire my assault rifle at that bunch of grunts.”
The grunts crashed to the ground. “I killed them!”
Jamie noticed on the split-screen that Kingston’s man, Arbiter, was in trouble. “Put up your bubble-shield! Put up your bubble-shield on your vehicle!” Jamie exclaimed. But it was too late. Kingston’s vehicle was blasted to high heaven by the Covenant Soldiers. He wasn’t as good at saving humanity as he was in his commercials.
“You’ll do better next time,” Jamie said in a consoling tone.
Maggie added, “The Covenant Force that fights against humanity is united under the worship of the Forerunners, who believe they are superior to the humans and ordered their destruction … sounds a little like … um … you know … Nazi Germany.”