Stealing Silence(10)
Mitch nodded. He had done an extensive background check into the Gainsborough family as part of his investigation. The family had lived at the manor for four generations. The one hundred acre parcel was handed down generation to generation until Albert inherited it upon his father’s death, but Albert had had no interest in farming. He had attended Solace University, named for the capital city in which it was located. There, he had earned his PhD in Environmental Chemistry, the scientific study of the chemical and biochemical phenomena that occur in natural places. There Albert had met the love of his life, Ellen Despina, a co-ed Biology major, first in her class and specializing in Entomology. Their return to the farm had a much greater focus, for they set up experiments to determine why the land was dying, right on their own farm. They combined their knowledge and expertise. From all accounts, they were developing an expertise that was promising. They were able to grow crops when the other farms around them had failed and were being abandoned in record numbers. There had even been rumors about the government approaching them to offer them both big money contracts to move to the city, but they had declined all offers to continue their private studies and experimentation, and to raise their two daughters on the family farm.
“I met them once,” said Mitch. “It was at a fundraiser for the local homeless shelter, one Christmas.” The homeless shelter was boarded up now. There was no one left to run it. Even the homeless had moved on, those who would have been named homeless before the drought. Now, only the gangs remained. “They were great. I know they loved you, very much.”
Alexa sniffed from the back seat but that was the only comment.
“Do you know who came to the door that night?” he continued. “Did you get a look at them?”
“No. We never saw their faces. But we know who they were.”
Mitch stiffened at these words. Perhaps he was going to find out, after all these years, a clue to the cold case that had haunted him for so long. He had solved half of it by picking up Avalon. He had found the missing Gainsborough children.
“Who were they?”
“Agents of the government. They worked for ESSA, the Edible Sustenance and Security Agency.”
“How do you know this?”
“My dad left this behind.” Avalon gestured to her sweater, holding up a sleeve. On the sleeve was a patch with a stylized black bee, stitched onto a golden background. “It was his favorite coat. He would never have left it behind, other than to give us warning. Besides, when the coast was clear, I picked it up from the end of our parent’s bed, where he left it. I found a note in a secret pocket. He had told us, if he ever went missing, to find his jacket.”
Mitch braked and pulled the car into a roadside rest station, coming to a halt with a jerk. A cloud of dust drifted away on the slight breeze as he turned to face Avalon directly. “Do you still have this letter?”
“Yup, its right here.” Alexa spoke from the backseat, pulling a small envelope from her pocket and handing it to Mitch.
Chapter 7
The Letter
“MY DARLING DAUGHTERS,” he read.
“I wish that it were not so, but if you are reading this, our worst fears have been realized. You have been too young to understand the importance of our work, and of what your mother and I discovered during the last ten years that we spent farming at the manor. I know it is the only home you have known, and for much of my life that has been the case also. Around twenty years ago, long before you were born, I was a young, ambitious man, who chafed at the idea of farming for a living. I had finished high school top in my class and was intent on choosing the career that I would like to pursue. My parents only wanted one thing — for me to stay and take over the family farm.
“The last few years of planting, before I left for university, were unusually difficult for your grandparents. They struggled to plant and grow a harvest as they always had done as Manor Gainsborough was renowned for its fertile soil. However, the land was failing and by failing I mean that, year by year, it was transforming from the lush, fertile pastures and fields of my childhood, into a hostile, environment, poisonous to all living things.
“But it was not just our farm, but our neighbours’ farms too. The change occurred subtly at first and then with increasing speed. Your grandfather changed his mind and begged me to go to school, to learn from the University in Solace and from the government instructors there. There were rumours that they had discovered the cause of the plague that was spreading across the land. So, along with many of the brightest from our community, I went off to university, to study ecological chemistry, for I was certain that the issue was something to do with an imbalance in the soil.
“As you know, I met your mother there and we fell in love. Long hours we spent pouring over our books, for our classes dovetailed in many areas. It did not take long for us to discover similar veins of thought incorporated into both of our fields of study. It also became apparent that the University was being told to neither discuss nor lecture about certain controversial government activities that the ecology movement on campus wished to expose. Mainly this centered around mining activities where minerals and oil were being extracted from the earth by a process called fracking. Fracking involves utilizing hydraulic pressure to break up rock and extract precious resources. The process has been fraught with controversy, but continued to be utilized, nevertheless.