Chapter 79

Whodathunkit?

You recall, I'm sure, the trunks Grace brought to Ann Arbor from the Not Lansing's property. The ones from basement, attic and garage? I certainly do.

The detectives wanted to search them. Hell, it sounded good to me, but Grace said, "No."

"If you don't have anything to hide, you should let us," said the thin one.

"Yeah," said the fat one.

"Get a warrant," said Grace.

That heightened the police mentality instantly. Constitution be damned, asking a policeman to obey the law is interfering with a policeman and that is a no no.

So, I took Grace aside, but not too far aside ... close enough that sotto voce could be misconstrued as an attempt to hide my thoughts but actually loud enough to be heard by the thin man.

"Grace, think of all the work ... and the expense of a locksmith ... that we'll have to go through to look in the chests. Let them do it ... we'll watch."

She grinned, it was noticed, she changed her face and said, "If you insist ... but don't break anything. We don't have keys."

The fat guy thought that we were cooperating but the thin man said, "Never mind. It was a fishing expedition. We don't need to look."

"Damn," said Grace, "David was hoping we wouldn't have to hire a locksmith."

What we did do, was to hire a bonded security firm to oversee the opening of the chests. Having had an inkling of what might be in the chests, I suggested a controlled climate warehouse ... like a certain bankrupt fur storage business ... that I could buy for a song ... and dance ... and a few dollars ... ok ... several big bills ... or maybe a decent sized cashiers check.

So ... I didn't exactly buy the warehouse ... I leased it with an option. The chests were moved ... including all the chests from Colonel Parker's widow ... to the controlled climate storage and unpacked, sorted, and catalogued. The truly trash was junked, the period clothing was offered up for bid, and the valuables locked up.

The History Department's Nineteenth Century professor was grateful for the packing newspaper. No one seems to collect local newspapers while everyone and his mothers brother collects the big city news. The Clinton County Republican News had information ... and misinformation ... like only a small town paper can have.

The National Archives wanted the letters from the deceased Navy Lieutenant exposing the follies and fantasies of the Officer Corps just before, during and just after the raid on Pearl Harbor ... and they wanted them unread, in original condition and free. "Official Secrets Act." They were too late so Grace and I were investigated to a fare-thee-well, sworn and cautioned. Yes, Yes, Yes, I understand you want to know. Too fucking bad. Maybe in 75 years the information will all come out ... but I have my doubts. Things this hot have a tendency to self combust.

The flags we kept. Who is going to display a 25 foot long 34 star battle flag from a Civil War Steam frigate? Or a 25 foot by 25 foot Confederate flag taken from an ironclad sunk in the Mississippi? Or, for that matter, a 40x60 foot battle flag found in a scholastic supply house in Lansing. Or an enormous Rising Sun from WW2.

Nobody ... not this close to the end of the war.

Hollywood and Broadway all started a bidding war for the period clothing, small ornaments and hundreds of tiny framed portraits of who knows who's ancestors. We didn't know about the jewelry until we returned from Key West. Grace flew the AD-2 and I hauled the rest of the crew in the Beech 18.

Don D. had moved almost the entire contents of the B-29 hangar, to the recently assembled B-29 hangar kit found stacked on pallets at the Parker farm.

During the war, the Army Air Corps trained enormous numbers of Negroes to do the assembly work on hangars using models that could be built from stepladders and then never allowed them in the field. We had one such man and his family who lived outside of town. He knew twenty five such men and Don hired them to do the work they had been trained to do but never allowed to do it in a combat zone. Don said it was like watching ants or bees ... never stopping, there was always work going on.

The local KKK didn't care for it and burned some crosses ... and Don nailed the local Klegle to one of the crosses and burned it in front of the local headquarters of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, staunch supporters of the Klan. The Klegle wasn't burnt up ... just a little scorched and there were rumors of retaliation but the hangar was soon finished and the men collected their pay and went back to Detroit.