Chapter 7

During dinner, so our wives would know what was to expect, I discussed what we planned to do for the next several days until we got more information.

“I’ll go out there and check the recording on Monday,” I finished. Our wives had already finished feeding the girls who were happily playing with the goo on the trays of their highchairs.

“You want me to go with you?” Ed asked.

“No, I don’t believe that’s necessary. I’m only going out there to change the recording disk and the batteries. I’ll bring the disk back here and listen to it. If there is anything important on it, I’ll let you know. Until then, I guess I’ll just work on my backlog of orders,” I told him.

Ed grinned on hearing my plan, “I know. I have a number of orders to fill also, but they know that I’m slow, so no one is expecting their piece to be finished anytime soon.” Then after a minute or so of thought, “Are you going to take Ashley and the girls with you?”

“If they want to go, I’ll take them, but I hadn’t planned on them going on every trip,” I told him.

“Definitely not!” Ashley objected. “The girls were still a mess when we got home. The ice cream had mixed with the left over sand in their clothes to create a real mess.”

Sunday, I worked in the forge on the orders that I had backed up. Ashley and Esther usually went to church together on Sundays, but they remained home this time. Ashley was concerned that someone might kidnap the twins from the church’s child care center while she was at the service.

Monday morning, I also worked in the forge, but quit just before noon and cleaned up before going to lunch.

“I’m going out to check the recorder,” I told Ashley during lunch. “Would you like to go?”

“No, I don’t think so. The girls have been a little cranky yesterday and today. I hope they didn’t catch something out there on Saturday.”

“Okay.” When lunch was over, I prepared to leave.

“Be careful!” She came into my arms for a hug and a kiss before I left. She was trembling just a bit, I noticed.

“I’m only going to check the recorder,” I assured her, and held her to me for several minutes until the trembling stopped.

“I’ll be back before dinner,” I assured her, as we broke contact.

The drive to the north side held nothing out of the ordinary. The park seemed less busy today than on our previous visits. I parked near the play area to be as inconspicuous as possible, and then worked my way over to the forested area and back through it to where our recorder was.

Approaching the location carefully, I checked for booby traps and trip wires but found nothing, or any indication that anyone had been here since we had on the previous Saturday. I even checked the back yards of the houses, and the windows facing the trees for any sign of someone watching, but again found no sign of anyone.

Since things seemed clear, I moved up to the recorder and checked it for booby traps and trip wires again but found nothing amiss. After opening the container, I used the headphones to see if anyone in the house was talking but found nothing being recorded. I turned the recorder off and removed the recording disk, before changing the batteries, putting in a new disk, and turning the recorder back on, and finished by closing it up. I had heard or seen no one during this procedure despite periodic stops to check. After being careful to remove all traces of my being there, I retreated through the forested area to my vehicle. The drive home was also uneventful.

Ashley was at the front door with her shotgun when I came up on the porch after arriving home.

“Maybe we both should start carrying those government cell phones,” I suggested, as I took her in my arms again after placing her shotgun in the rack by the door.

“Yes, that sounds like a good idea,” she agreed.

“Do I have time to listen to this disk before dinner?” I asked her.

“No, dinner is almost ready. Get the girls in their highchairs,” she told me.

“Da!” both girls giggled and clapped their hands on seeing me. I picked them up from their playpen and carried them into the kitchen. Ashley had already moved the trays of their highchairs out to the unlocked position. I deposited a twin in each chair, secured her with the belt there and closed the tray to keep them in. They were unhappy about that and began to fuss.

“You need to play with them some,” Ashley told me, and I turned and gave her a blank look.

“How!?” I asked.

“Do something to amuse them while I finish dinner,” she told me. I continued to look at her stupidly, which she picked up on quickly.

“Watch dinner while I amuse the girls a bit!” she finally told me in disgust. I watched as she made funny faces and snuck around behind the chairs to pop up and surprise them saying “boo!” to amuse them. The girls laughed and giggled, but soon held their arms out.

“Da!” they said.

“You have to be kidding!” Ashley said in disgust on seeing this.

“You hold them for a while,” she told me, as she returned to making dinner. I slid the trays out, loosened the belts, and picked the twins up again. At ten months old, they were getting heavy, not that it was anything that I couldn’t handle. They cuddled up against me on either side, and I walked around the downstairs with them for a time until Ashley had dinner prepared and on the table.

After helping feed the girls and having dinner, I went into the den to listen to what was on the disk that I had retrieved, as I had the software needed on my computer. After several hours of listening, all that I had heard was part of several television shows, food frying in the kitchen, the shower running, and snoring. It didn’t appear that Mark Haskins had any visitors, or had done much at home this weekend. I did conclude that he had a rather short attention span from the way he skipped around the television channels. I phoned Ed to let him know that we had learned nothing yet.

The rest of the week pretty much followed this pattern. I returned to the park on Wednesday, Friday, and again on Sunday morning, all with similar results. Ashley went with me on Sunday instead of going to church. She played with the twins on the swing but kept them out of the sand box, as it had rained overnight and the sand was all wet. There were few people at the park that early on a Sunday morning.

I wasn’t long changing the disk and batteries. There was still no evidence that anyone had visited the area where the recorder was. I had checked the surrounding area carefully each time that I was here without finding any sign of others having been here. When finished, I quickly rejoined my family.

There were two of the toddler seats for young children on the swing set and Ashley was trying to keep both swinging at the same time. The twins were giggling and appeared to be as happy as could be, unless the swing stopped.

“Give me a hand!” my harried wife called as I placed the recording disk and the used batteries in the back of the SUV. I quickly joined her and began pushing one of the twins in a gentle backward and forward motion on the swing.

“You are going to have to get YOUR daughters a swing set this year, and maybe a sandbox next year,” Ashley informed me as our daughters continued to swing gently back and forth. All of a sudden they were MY daughters when something was needed.

The girls continued to squeal in delight as we pushed them on the swing. After another half hour or so, we decided they had enough, and stopped the swinging. They fussed a little, but were pretty worn out by then. We got them back in their child safety seats and started back home. The twins were asleep before we hit the main road for home.

By the time we were on the gravel road to the house, the twins were stirring and looking around. They loved to ride in the SUV, but we had been gone for several hours and they were probably at least wet, if not something worse.

The alarm system hadn’t indicated any problems, but I still checked the area around the house and then the house itself before Ashley and the twins got out of the vehicle. We took the twins upstairs to change them, before we all went down to the kitchen for a quiet lunch, if there is such a thing with twins. After lunch, Ashley played with the girls until they were tired again and took a nap. In the meantime, I took the recording disk into the den to listen to it. My great hopes for something at least interesting if not useful were only wishful thinking it turned out.

On Friday night, Haskins didn’t appear to have come home at all. Saturday wasn’t much better, as he came home and promptly went to sleep. Saturday night was again a waste of time, as was Sunday morning. I called Ed and gave him the disappointing news. We weren’t getting anywhere with this.

“I’ll give it another week or so,” I told Ed on the phone. “If we don’t get anything concrete by then, I’ll just remove the equipment and cancel Haskins.”

“We really need to find out something about this ‘Sons of Man’ group. Do they have any other leaders or any other chapters?” Ed told me, sounding discouraged also.

“Yes, I know! We aren’t getting anywhere with just this bugging operation, and may need to try something else” I told him.

“All right, maybe we’ll come up with something concrete over the next week,” Ed said, but didn’t sound hopeful. For the remainder of Sunday, I spent time with my daughters when they woke up from their nap.

That night Ashley was very passionate and we made love twice. She shook and screamed her orgasms out and passed out the second time. Luckily, we hadn’t awakened the girls who were tired from playing with me again after dinner. We were awakened by the twins early on Monday morning, as I had opened the bedroom door before going to sleep after the last time.

“What time is it?” Ashley asked me groggily, as she came awake to the sound of the twins crying. I looked over at the alarm system panel.

“It’s 8:00 in the morning,” I told her, as I stretched. Ashley looked down at her naked body.

“Lord, I need a shower,” she told me.

“Yes, let’s!” I agreed.

“Oh no you don’t, Mister. You’re the reason that I need a shower,” she told me, determinedly.

“Oh, and you weren’t part of what went on last night, wife?” I asked her. Ashley blushed big time.

“Yes, I was, but if we shower together, we’ll never get to the girls. You go check on them while I shower,” she told me, taking command. I got up, put on some short pajama pants and headed for the twins room prepared for the worst. Ashley got up and padded into the bathroom naked.

The twins were wet and unhappy, but that was all. I changed them and carried them into our room where Ashley was dressing, having finished her shower.

“Ma!” the twins giggled on seeing her, and reached out with their arms, wanting her to hold them.

“I need to shower too,” I reminded her. “Wait for me and I’ll help you carry the twins downstairs.”

“Don’t be too long,” she told me, as I put the girls down on the bed, and grabbing some underwear from a drawer, I headed in to shower.

After feeding our daughters and having breakfast, I went out to the forge to work on outstanding orders, and spent most of the day there, breaking only for lunch. That night we both slept very well. Ashley cuddled up to me for a while but that was all.

Tuesday, the 22nd of June, I was up early and worked in the forge briefly, but about 10:00 o’clock I left to check the recorder again. The drive was boring, and I really wasn’t expecting much. I collected the disk and replaced it and the batteries. After lunch, I went into the den to listen to the nothing that I was expecting to be on the disk. Instead, I got a real surprise. I had only been listening for a short time when I heard visitors arrive and a meeting start. I shut off the recording and called Ed.