Learn About McCrellis
Dean Chadburn : We've had enough time to sort through most of this. The assignment was reasonable, and we achieved what we could, using the tools we had to work with. Can we take it in some new direction?
Alec Ryba : I don't see us being at a standstill. I think it's run its course. We have to wait to make sure.
Dean : I can't sound too optimistic. If there's more to the project, this new working arrangement isn't going to be much help.
Alec : 'In-house review, at the discretion of staff members.' But this burden may evaporate.
Dean : It has to. The burden takes too long.
Alec : At least we can travel, if it's called for. It doesn't all come down to these emails. But compared to me you've got some advantage, because you and Kathleen Williamson both work at national headquarters. The Board of Directors may be an advantage as well, or a disadvantage.
Dean : The Directors can get in touch with me if they insist. One thing's definite : there won't be anything more from Eldar Woodruff and Rick Sarto, productive though they were. And I agree that traveling has helped us, for example that trip to the 'former care center' in Washington State - a trip we've both made. I'd still prefer to have a straightforward explanation of the project.
Alec : Maybe I can say more than I have. Life took a big turn my last week in New York. Belmont, our dear Executive, approached me before the others approached you. So we talked about several concerns. That was a day when the gusts were giving us unpredictable banners and tree branches. You've heard of the casual site for having talks that matter. Outside the restaurant we stood next to a long partition that's made of concrete. The streets of that neighborhood have been set over against a kind of arboretum. He told me he'd been talking to persons of consequence, meaning someone besides our Directors. He told me that the impulse for this work has come from outside, without slighting our prominence as a nonprofit organization. I didn't reply that this would have to be a slighting of our prominence. I said to him, "It's fair enough that I'd be chosen. My work ties in with it pretty well." What you didn't understand was the way this assignment helps the broad based intentions of the corporate group. We're trying to protect a social class on the basis of municipal standing. As a technical point the command came from the Executive, with his four advisors signing off on it. When you get all five like that, people cooperate fully, every time.
Dean : Is it too early for an evaluation from our superiors?
Alec : We'll be given a final statement a week from Wednesday. I've already heard some things, not final but provisional. Nothing, so far, that seems very important. Someone in the office had their doubts about the two guys from Seattle you hired. Tell me how those guys look in hindsight.
Dean : They did as well as we could ask. For a long time Eldar Woodruff has been, to use the corniest phrase in the English language, a 'private investigator.' I won't bother you with a list of reasons he was chosen for the job. After an hour's consultation we agreed to work together. He began travelling and I didn't see him for almost two weeks. The other person, Rick Sarto, brings a much different set of credentials. He calls himself a psychic. That way he doesn't have to call himself a private investigator.
Alec : I could stand some clairvoyance if it told me who's calling the shots for Kathleen : the Executive, the Board of Directors or the outsiders. If you know more about this, you haven't said so. Anyway, she's the first one I heard mentioning Kirby McCrellis and a troublesome creature named Brenda Desler. The next afternoon I was cornered by the Executive. I have to admit, he disdains the Ryba Method as much as the Chadburn Method. He spent some time getting too personal. That was also when he told me the kind of report we should give.
Dean : The report we should give - the kind without any judgments about the nation's border security measures. I find it easy to omit that topic, but it comes up in the discussion sooner instead of later.
Alec : We've both been expecting a rigid response to our conclusions.
Dean : Once again, a summary of the fieldwork. The first man I hired for this project is Woodruff. He came to my office about a week after I got the assignment. When I told him about McCrellis he liked it as a challenge. I didn't mention Sarto. If you've never seen Eldar Woodruff he's a man of medium height, a rough but intelligent looking face, and he's close to fifty. He returned after his twelve days or so in the field. He really was adding to the file we keep on Kirby. He said, "Our man was killed in some sort of industrial accident back in August of 2019. The cause : a nonbiological toxin, according to my primary source. I can't see that this more specific fact was made public. Of course people know that he died at work." Kirby was fifty-three. It's too bad Eldar missed a few places that deserved a look. He didn't say anything about what our staff had already described as 'that oddball place in the Pacific Northwest' - the place that had been a sanatorium. Now they call it, as you know, the Regional Proving Center, and I mentioned it to Eldar, but he hadn't heard of it. I asked him about Kirby's family. He'd learned about Kirby's time as an undergraduate at Purdue, and his lasting friendship with persons in that area. He consulted those persons as well as McCrellis family members who live in Texas. He had plenty of details, and the pivotal circumstance was that Kirby's wife had died of natural causes in 2017.
Alec : I was at the Proving Center about three weeks after you were there. I may have gotten a much different tour of the place than you did. I only went because a certain eminence told me to. I wasn't inside very long. As for Woodruff, I'm not sure he would have found anything he could use if he did go there. Tell me your impression of the facility.
Dean : When I reached the Center I was dealing with a picturesque downpour. It felt appropriate. You probably didn't notice everything. The steep slope of the tiled roof belongs to an architectural form of 1926, the year the facility opened for business. If corporation America chooses an isolated spot for such work, that's where it happens. But now it's a different kind of work. Having more than one stated purpose, the building is said to be mostly a 'research clearing house,' if that's believable. The testing of diagnostic instruments happens in the basement or on the fourth floor. A courteous and responsible man greeted me when I was allowed inside, but it was mostly a woman named Jan Marshall who spoke to me. She let me know some things about the present use of the building. I learned about the past as well - documentation of a visit Kirby had made as a young man. The person he came to learn about was a sister of his maternal grandmother. She'd been a resident there for seven years when the care facility closed down in 1954. Kirby would have seen documentation of his relative's time there. Jan guided me through the rooms that people from off the street are permitted to see. We spent a few minutes discussing the syndrome called Nervous Abuse, one of the bigger problems they'd faced at the care center. I'm sorry to say Jan wouldn't allow me to see case files. I spent some more time in what, for me, seemed to be the main room. An hour and a half later I was ready to leave. The downpour was moderate by then.
I memorized a few features before I left. The building has a tall chimney and a somewhat taller smokestack. Much of the roof is flat, but other parts of the building have a third floor, with a tiled, sharply inclined covering. At two places on the outside, rusty metallic staircases go from one floor to the next. Here and there the place has external fixtures that may have been carelessly - or deliberately - kept on as a form of anachronism. I drove away.
Alec : Something I found, which you had told me you didn't, is Kirby's resting place. My own visit had its downpour, but it let up for a half hour. The cemetery's located about ten miles from the Proving Center. It's quite small, with about three dozen graves. Beside Kirby's grave is that of Rose McCrellis (1965 - 2017).
Dean : Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Let me say this : I still believe what I believed when I saw the position paper that Belmont and Friends came out with not long before the start of our project. Some of our personnel still haven't read it. They heard it summarized in a lecture at the office or they heard someone go through it on a talk show. The paper agrees with the old position but fills in some gaps. To most people it would seem frivolous that this organization cares so much about someone like McCrellis. Our special assignment goes off on a tangent from the nonprofit's direction. Certainly our staff writers collaborated on the position paper, and they've gotten some concepts from a man who teaches at Columbia University. At times we're under the sway, not always fortunate, of personalities who thrive in this great center of telecommunications. Republicans would like me to say it, but I still admit the U. N. can be a nuisance. The best thing about the new statement is the advocacy of better policies regarding the vectors of drug abuse. This covers problems besides the opioid epidemic. Like you, I reject the idea that the paper is political. But it's bound to antagonize more than one government south of the border.
Alec : What we didn't need after presenting the paper was the response from Culture Monitors. There are people at headquarters who say that we incurred such a thing by joining the Accords. Because of the global agreement, CM is able to countermand certain policies in various nations. They'll balk at something, and we don't know exactly what.
Dean : Here at the office we had a dreadful emotional response to the CM response.
Alec : I only saw Rick one time, and I've been trying to disregard a suggestion he made before we got much done on the assignment. You know him better, so correct me if I have this wrong. He believes our greatest threat comes from a species unrelated to humans. He doesn't use terms like 'Reptilian' or 'Sasquatch.' But he thinks this inimical form of life is native to planet Earth. He says they're completely concealed and segregated as long as they're not making forays against helpless humanity. Rick is quite serious about relying on his informants, not just intuition. You stated that these persons who give testimony are a marginal social class, but it's true that some are not bad as public speakers. You said you accompanied Rick to one of their lectures. You heard some references to forested areas and caverns where the nonhumans are supposedly thriving. His narrative holds the attention.
Dean : But you and I think it has nothing to do with our concerns, or the Monitors' concerns. It was news to me that they take an interest in what we say about the paranormal - what they're calling our 'fetish.' I wasn't even aware that we'd said much about the paranormal.
Alec : I don't envy Kathleen her new responsibilities. With CM oversight there's a huge emphasis on medical questions. The poor woman has to brush up on her Nervous Abuse literature.
Dean : It was a big deal in 1938. The best known expert who discussed the problem was ridiculed. A very successful radio play presented a misleading scenario. And a committee at Berkeley - appointed by some brilliant person - reached a crushing evaluation : there was no such malady. The symptoms could be ascribed to other diseases. The Roosevelt Administration was more perceptive about the scourge, but not very aggressive. It's true that a few popular, coarse novels touched on this in some chapters about the depraved administrators of loony bins. They depict a range of signs from suddenly increased blood pressure to frenzy calling for straitjackets, and among other things, 'tracheal sounds that don't seem human.' Before long all the concerns about this problem were suspended. By the end of the war it seemed medical researchers had other things to talk about.
Alec : Yesterday I was informed that our people had done research on this thing several decades ago. It was the beginning of our fetish, which came to include the paranormal. But the staff played it down, and apparently no one told you. Staff members could have told me some things, too, before I got my transfer.
Dean : I'm surprised they didn't. It's your project, mostly, I guess, because of your expertise on the topic of cross-border mischief.
Alec : I should have demanded more extensive briefing. Almost at the very start of this I was called in to see the Directors. They try their damndest, you have to give them that much. And you know the selection of sages. A notorious administrator who lives in Rhode Island had a field day. Not at my expense - he wasn't being nasty. But he has a craving for the sort of pestilence that can only be cleared away by the midlevel swine in our profession. I'm not sure he doesn't always get his way in that group we answer to.
Dean : And he's the reason you're not here?
Alec : Probably not him, and yes, I do have suspicions. A person besides Belmont may have thought I was a hindrance. Now that person has more freedom.
Dean : Something else is different here now at headquarters. I see Belmont every day. He's adamant, all of a sudden, when it comes to revising the health standards for migrant farm workers. He's adding more conditions to the assignment. I think that means the assignment continues, but I assume the longer it goes the more complicated things get.
Alec : I learned of some new conditions my first day on the West Coast. Out here the worries about immigrants would be a little different. One man especially presumes to be my tutor, but I can accept it because he knows what he's talking about. He's candid about the 'resurgence' of Nervous Abuse. It's one of the challenges with migration. Aside from that there's something I find confusing : you've spent some time out here, but there hasn't been much overlap in our efforts at research. The life story of the person we're investigating seems hard to clarify. It wasn't the outsiders, it was one of our own people who heard about Brenda Desler, did some probing and then heard about Kirby. He thought Brenda was involved in drug trafficking, and he thought Kirby was helping her. After he told Belmont, the notion occurred to Belmont that Kirby was some sort of kingpin.
Dean : Who was it, Belmont, or the other one, who suspected the workers at the Proving Center?
Alec : No one who looks into it believes that the Proving Center has a recent history of high-level crime. I'd have to say the place was targeted by our leadership. I mean the Directors and some other people in the most privileged category. They wanted to find something there. Was that from desperation? I don't think it was Belmont's idea.
Dean : Our dear Executive complies with Directors and outsiders in the way that's practical, but they know he's a strong personality. He's enabled the organization to weather storms that are political or merely social. Everyone's impressed by a man of his background : innovating with policy for a decade at the Sorger Foundation. His reputation hasn't suffered from his falling out with his colleagues at Sorger.
Alec : He's done more than his share for the ideals we profess.
Dean : That's interesting about the part played by Brenda Desler. I think her activities at the Proving Center predate the hiring of Jan Marshall. In the picture that emerges, Brenda gains the assistance of a worker there as well as help from Kirby. One man recalls Kirby and Brenda having idealistic fellowship. Now she spends a lot of time at some kind of mystery station located somewhere in the Cascade Mountains. We've made fanciful guesses about the station.
Alec : Didn't you say you had more than a guess?
Dean : I think we do. Rick Sarto came to my office one morning with a disclosure. He didn't come right out and guarantee that this was based on reliable intuition. But his claims agree with what we've since learned from other persons. Funny thing about that psychic warrior - he seems to have given up.
Alec : What were his claims that you found so believable?
Dean : Sarto informs us that this country is being flooded with 'reformers' who spend all their time, and someone's great amount of money, promoting The Accords. Quite a few come from Europe, and they're pretending to be expatriates. He says the mountain lodge has gotten their attention. I still think we had good reasons to sign The Accords, but we do pay a price. Now Sarto's convinced the reformers have hired some men to be gunning for him.
Alec : Beyond conspiracy theory?
Dean : If it's an obvious fact, you don't need a theory. I hope it stays in the category of theory.
Alec : For a private foundation we get more than our share of interference, even hostility. I don't think this can be explained in terms of mainstream politics. But somebody wants to use our findings in a selfish way. The somebody is organized crime. We saw this last year. When a legendary serial killer stalks your most accomplished official, there has to be an esoteric motive. Most people think of organized crime as being driven by finance. In this case it was a blend of money and something more decisive. You're the one who broke the news on that.
Dean : I'm glad it was over before I knew it was happening.
Alec : The basic situation's an old story, and the current problem is well-defined. We'd like to prove that Brenda's working for the same cause - the justice - we're trying to advance, instead of doing something criminal. We have some restraints on how we do this. Most of them are defined by The Accords. As a practical matter most of our own work derives from the greatness of one metropolitan system. What happens across the nation has to be a result of that. We were promised we'd be allowed complete candor, which means the report wouldn't be shown to everyone who works for the organization. That's the fortunate nature of our bylaws.
Dean : I can't help thinking the outside influence occasioned a new position paper. It also determined our assignment. You agree?
Alec : Yes, and it gave us four months duration with a fascinating job of social research. The point is underscored by the fact that a man representing the outsiders came to my office three weeks ago. He offered to give assistance if we have trouble reaching some informative conclusion. I spent plenty of time with this character, trying to be sure that said partnership would be legit. I'm still not asking for their help.
Dean : Unless I have a need to know, you can keep his identity to yourself. You be the judge of that. We'll see this project through whatever else comes up, if there's something else.
Alec : There must be an outcome.
Dean : For now the result is modest : our employment continues with its humanitarian purpose. That may not last much longer, depending on what's happening at the level of leadership. From some of our colleagues I'm hearing good things about your method, but mine is rebuked by the outsiders. I don't seem to be on the firmest ground. But we had to be concerned about a man's posthumous reputation. Any surviving relatives are threatened in the worst case scenario. The problem of character assassination comes up as a peripheral snag. Kirby's behavior could be an issue and he could be fair game, but only if he was still alive. He was present for the rowdy situation happening at a private airfield, but was he there during the worst of it? Some reports claim that several fun loving idiots went directly from the airfield to the civil disturbance happening at the Portland waterfront. We can't confirm that Brenda was involved in that. At least one brawler has devotion to a Mount Shasta cult. He's a white man who claims to be a Modoc. You know about my interviews with two of the rowdies. Your interviews out there, especially one with a teenager who'd been physically abused before coming to this country, have been more productive. They were mentioned approvingly just now in a lecture at headquarters. Congratulations on the brilliance of your method.
Alec : I wish I could take credit for what my team has done. Thanks anyway.
Dean : Kathleen tells me she's been corresponding intensively with Jan Marshall. When she talks to Kathleen the woman at the Proving Center claims to know a lot about Brenda. It gets interesting. I played a small part in this breakthrough by telling Jan she could always talk to Kathleen. How about that! I told our spokeswoman that you need to know these things, and the information has to be coming from her, not me.
Alec : I did receive a message from Kathleen about that. There's a lot to the message, and I have to take my time analyzing the content.
Dean : Kirby's reason for being involved in a dramatic secret isn't very clear. You and I learned some things about his attitudes when we showed up at that not-so-proper picnic. It was a good blend of social types. At the gathering we confirmed our sense that his friends and relatives all see him as the common man. They laugh when you describe him as taking part in a movement. None of those acquaintances seemed to know about Brenda Desler.
Alec : I'm told you received what I just now received, a bit of news about the unidentified man who comes from Paris. Your initial thoughts, please.
Dean : Unidentified is right. He's been talking to the Directors. If he arrived yesterday I haven't seen him, and they may have gotten together at some other place instead of here at the offices. No one's denying that he represents Culture Monitors, based in Paris. They're making sure I can't tell who it is among the half dozen officials that come to mind. I bet he's one of those men we saw three years ago when we were sent to the international conference in France. It was organized by Culture Monitors, but why was it held in Grenoble instead of Paris? You remember that time at the university - just impossible, too rich for my blood and so forth, but we had to attend. It wasn't all bad. I witnessed a phenomenal display of athletic prowess on some ancient stairwell that led into a very thin corridor enclosed in granite. Somersaulters. Trouble is, the scheduled and serious discussions were not helpful. Now about this man from Paris - we'd better be ready for something making our task more difficult. In our talks with desperate applicants there will be situations where we can't offer help.
Alec : Marvelous France, the place where we had our noses rubbed in The Accords. I'd still have to say I met some worthy achievers at Grenoble. And I'm troubled by the same limitation you are.
Dean : This is what I'm anticipating : either we discover that the outsiders and the activists from CM are working at cross purposes, or we learn that they can both be accomodated, with whatever needs to be done to bring resolution. I think it's the second of these, even if that's difficult to explain.
Alec : Is it good that Kathleen's drawing more and more attention to the Proving Center?
Dean : I'd say it's unavoidable. The Center's the common experience bringing Kirby and Brenda together, perhaps not as lovers but as persons with similar ambitions for society. Kirby spent much less time there, but we'll say that one time was the right time for an introduction. Diagnostic tools of the kind being tested there have been used by illegal immigrants for some fraudulent purposes. There's a link to the larger pattern of mischief.
Alec : Where does the humanitarian effort go wrong?
Dean : You explained it yourself the last time I saw you in your office - the one with such a wide-ranging view of the Atlantic Ocean. You loved the view and you loved being in New York. I take it you still have the same beliefs about immigration problems and other problems, now that you work in San Francisco.
Alec : Of course my beliefs are the same. In regard to the specter of human trafficking and the other nightmares unleashed by immigrants on the unsuspecting populace, we've always had qualified persons forming a department that looks into it. Kathleen has been promoted as the spokesperson for that department. What's refreshing about her is that she defends the police and she likes to say that "cops are social workers with guns." I don't accuse her of being the one who had me exiled. I think I can make the most of it here in my new surroundings. It's official that I was transferred to this town so I can deal more efficiently with those cultists who work from a lodge near Mount Shasta. I've made some trips to the foothills, and I'll be spending most of next month near the mountain. Kathleen was here two days ago. The parley we had was all about Brenda, who must be at the lodge much of the time. Kathleen wants to implicate that woman in the worst way.
Dean : It took us a long time to see the connection between human trafficking and the imaginative lore that's come to be devoted to the mountain. The connection manifests an evil genius in popular culture. Rick's informants don't seem reliable, but their social background has a kind of relevance. Their story telling originates with a knowledge of the crimes in trafficking. Somehow the anecdotes become references to the spiritual and extraterrestrial. Perhaps before long our society will understand the connection. Be that as it may, someone has to counter the trafficking there. You might hate me for saying it, but I think you're the man for the job.
Alec : I hate you for saying it.
Dean : One of my plans was nixed by the Directors. I thought I'd come to the Bay Area, talk to your people and see if I could get extra funding for special programs to give you more help. It wasn't just my idea. But the worst person learned of this before I could put everything together. Sorry.
Alec : I think I know what you were proposing to do, and I agree that it would have helped. We could have learned more about our subject.
Dean : Now I should express my sense of a possibility that must have occurred to the leadership at headquarters. It regards the outside influence. I would think the 'impulse for this work' is a concern about something besides Kirby. What they're trying to learn is the history of Nervous Abuse. They plan to make this an issue bigger than it's ever been since the days of FDR. Imagine the politics of relating this to the stealthy immigrants!
Alec : I'm willing to theorize that the McCrellis factor is more germane than you think. We're learning more about his involvement with Brenda's comrades.
Dean : Yes, there is that. We have to make sense of the idea that Kirby's political views, if he had some worth describing, would attempt to vindicate the sordid actions of the worst immigrants. Has he been misinterpreted?
Alec : He has yet to be interpreted one way or the other. Before anything else gets determined, we can state with confidence that his death was the kind of event mentioned by Eldar : the accident happening at work. There was no murder. But his friends or coworkers may have been flirting with treason. I think you understand that a suspicion of murder was one reason for my being relocated. I'm supposed to help someone find the killer, and that's an excuse for saddling me with some other duties now that I'm here. According to my own suspicion, Kirby the so-called idealist was manipulated by Brenda. For that plan she may have done something criminal, but the fatal accident has no connection to anything else we investigate.
Dean : Time for another bulletin. The Executive has brought me a text which he says paraphrases the testimony of someone who knew Kirby. Assuming it does, we're given a new sense of Kirby's behavior. He did some volunteer work trying to improve the lives of homeless people, and strangely enough, he brought several of the unfortunates into the ranks of performers with community theater. There's also testimony about some comments made by Rose McCrellis. In the last years of her life she encouraged the volunteer work with community theater. It isn't reported what she thought about other matters, e. g. Brenda. No one tells me the name of this witness, and Belmont doesn't claim he got this disclosure from the extraneous people we've been referring to.
Alec : Our subject has a flip side, after all.
Dean : I reject the notion that Kirby was a party animal, but if he had lived he would have been one of those persons flouting the COVID-19 restrictions. I base this on reasons that are, as far as I can tell, uniquely my own.
Alec : I know what you're getting at. I defer to your knowledge of non-party animals who flout restrictions.
Dean : Can we still argue that this project blends in with what we've always done?
Alec : We can argue as long as we want. If our money for this peculiar task is coming from outside, I prefer to think the money isn't being kept by someone as personal profit. I think the source probably is not the government. Assuming it comes from a right wing interest, we were expected to find some dirt - extra dirt - on the horde of illigal immigrants. I wasn't sure we'd find anything more intense than a fine, harmless powder.
Dean : It isn't certain that it came from the right, but if it did, that tells us who wouldn't be allowed to see the report.
Alec : I don't know if you've heard yet, but we've got a problem of internationalism : our best option has been revoked by Culture Monitors. The man from Paris has achieved something by means of negotiation. They're still not telling us, at least not me, who he is. He has one main objection, and it blocks everything in Clause 4 of the bylaws. It turns out that CM had someone talking to Jan Marshall at the Proving Center - years ago. They were asking about Brenda.
Dean : Our attorneys notified me a few minutes before you did. We knew this could happen. Jan finally admits that Brenda was working there for two years under an alias. But that was a decade ago. Some aggressive manager uncovered the chicanery, then screened it out in a heartbeat. The disclosure was substantive. It puts the larger view in a different light. The McCrellis report could survive, but some things won't. Kathleen's job is threatened by it.
Alec : You think the nullification of Clause 4 was triggered by the position paper more than anything else?
Dean : The paper would help, and they must have set this in motion before we began working on McCrellis. They didn't have our project in mind, but it still hampers the project.
Alec : It figures the Board of Directors would cave in.
Dean : And so we have a crisis for our stated purpose as a corporation. Two persons who matter have made warnings about finding work elsewhere. Others have made some desperate statements. This could be quite the wager : will it actually simmer down?
Alec : We're getting more information on how those cultists operate in the big city. They have a corps of extremely sophisticated panhandlers. Alongside this corps they have a separate kind of recruiter. This is a person who approaches teenagers and young adults, usually female. He says to them, "Come along and spend some time in a camp where you can work to save the purity of the wilderness." You can't imagine how many sweethearts fall for it.
Dean : A frightful prospect for the youngsters. Anyway, I'm going right now to Belmont's office with an email regarding Clause 4. Talk to you later.
Alec : Let me know what you find. I'm trying to relate these things to the unpleasantness at headquarters - the tension we felt right before my move to the West Coast. That nonsense of having to 'refine' some policies regarding the disadvantaged. And the new controversy about education.
Dean : This took me longer than it should have. I got through to someone at the office, and he won't tell me much. Now that you mention that time before you left - I remember Belmont seeming to be at his worst during the unpleasantness. Do you think he has a more critical knowledge about Kirby, something he won't tell us?
Alec : My answer to that would only be speculation.
Dean : All right, I just got word from Belmont. He didn't give me a serious answer to my question, but he did say that Jan has made a substantial disclosure. It jibes with a remark I'd heard from Kathleen. Apparently the transcript of some cult meeting at Mount Shasta was sent to our spokeswoman. It's about the cult hierarchy.
Alec : And I've been going through the last report from Woodruff. I assume you've seen it. The private eye established, from talks with Kirby's friends and relatives, that the guy enjoyed giving descriptions of the Mount Shasta subculture. He'd been there a couple of times. I didn't know Eldar had found some useful contacts in the towns of Northern California. He also came across Rick Sarto without any of us telling him about Sarto. Rick's pretension of occult guidance is based on studies in that region's folklore. It's my turn to be impressed - by your application of the Chadburn Method. The specialists I work with here have some ideas that mesh with what the psychic tells us. Too bad we can't stop those ideas from being exploited by a familiar brand of do-gooder. I predict this will cause huge problems for law enforcement on the West Coast. Aside from that, we may have a problem using Eldar's work. Some of his tactics are no-noes. His harmless aura maxes out when he's put to the test. Did you hear what he did in Stockton - to that poor guy in a wheel chair? I don't see how he could thrive in the profession so long.
Dean : We can make our case with or without him. I still think our best evidence takes the form of that suffering teenager we managed to retrieve. You hate to think his handlers forgot about him or abandoned him, as they were probably inclined to do when they saw his grotesque medical state. More literature for Nervous Abuse. He's going to survive, and his testimony, like his health condition, amazes people. It's one thing that he makes a startling assertion about Brenda, but his first hand experience of some other persons has to cause more alarm. We've put up with the most disgraceful publicity about this kid. It's because the sanatorium had some patients with identical symptoms. The nervous condition actually triggered belligerence through most of the publicity system back in the day. I see it now : supposedly Clause 4 would promote this and similar nightmares, especially the kind most repugnant to Culture Monitors. In this country the Official Righteous would like to keep the strange medical problem a secret. Unlike me Brenda was allowed to see the old patient files that have been retained at the Proving Center. Was it a major administrative blunder that the files have been kept?
Alec : Now the CM blogs are talking about the Woodruff dilemma. Look at their online editorials.
Dean : I see what you mean about CM's take on the Woodruff dilemma.
Alec : That's a minor subject compared to this information that's finally coming in. CM keeps making demands, and though most of us haven't been told, both sides are scoring points. I'm not sure about the concessions our people have won, but the ones we've given are too great. We can expect major changes to the preventive and remedial measures that we've used. Unless there's a joyous miracle, I'll have to resign when we hear the final evaluation of the report.
Dean : I hope you don't mean that.
Alec : Can you give me some idea what the mood is like at the New York office? What I'm hearing about indirectly doesn't sound good.
Dean : Kathleen's been talking to federal investigators. They got wind of the same cult meeting at Shasta. I don't know what, but something drastic must have been happening at the lodge. I'm tempted to make a lurid inference. It sounds callous to point out that things might have gone much worse for Kirby if he had survived the toxin mishap.
Alec : Since receiving your message of last night I'm informed that the authorities have located Brenda Desler. The woman emerges from a squalid neighborhood in the Bay Area.
Dean : Any news about the company she's been keeping there?
Alec : The first thing to acknowledge is that she'd been expelled from the mountain society. We'll find out why it happened and why she chose this new location. Her neighbors bear little resemblance to the residents of the lodge.
Dean : What's next for you people in California?
Alec : Not enough, perhaps, in terms of law enforcement. I don't think the governor's proposed assault on the mountain lodge will happen. One thing's for sure, though. Brenda's husband, Ron Desler, is in big trouble. They can grab him as an individual, and he'll be put away. Most anything wrong at the lodge will be blamed on Mr. Desler.
Dean : So much for the collective morale here at this place. We had to restrain one of our men - keep him from jumping out a seventh-floor window. At first I thought it was Belmont. Is this anxiety just the beginning? There's that louse of a TV reporter saying we stole some equipment from the Proving Center. Our stated mission is suddenly being attacked by a number of dignitaries. This is a curse for the staff here at headquarters. In the rooms of an office building you can experience malaise that goes beyond the social breakdown often depicted by serious playwrights. There's a cloak that settles on the psyche. Beforehand you'd never guess the feeling of betrayal. You can be deceived by the day-in, day-out body language of the idealists who are being used - the ones who keep coming to work.
Alec : Your summation has eloquence.
Dean : We can admit the truth about Kirby McCrellis. He was the hapless widower. His role was consequential in so far as he could introduce Brenda to the most dangerous persons in his environment. We have some idea who those persons would be. On the one hand there's no suggestion that Kirby had problems of substance abuse. On the other hand his imagination was extravagant. In one sense he was clueless. His aiding and abetting of immigrants' crime was merely a strange form of naivety. Eldar claims that Kirby was being investigated before his death.
Alec : I've been stymied in one way, just because the hypothetical partnership of Kirby and Brenda was a small part of what we investigated. You mentioned cross-border mischief. I call the problem cross-border health issues, especially the kinds you don't hear anything about.
Dean : The men who founded our corporate group must have been as prescient as they were confidant. You know the reasoning they told us to apply "when it's time for final adjustment."
Alec : Most of the present leaders are well-intentioned. But it's enigmatic how they came up with a scheme that emphasizes the one time sanatorium. Can we believe that they were moving ahead without some clue from a vested interest?
Dean : At the start of our search Kirby was presumed to have been a major influence. Mistakenly presumed.
Alec : His epitaph says, 'Family man, in spite of everything.'
Dean : I can't wait for the statement they'll give us tomorrow - the evaluation they promised. We'll find out what they think of the report. I care about that even though we've just had a much bigger announcement.
Alec : 'Much bigger,' sadly, is right. So they're actually dissolving the organization. I won't have to make my own painful announcement. The Directors are letting everyone go, for the globalist reasons they told us this morning. CM wins again. We couldn't withstand the political tensions that have built up, and someone else will benefit. Our loss is another nonprofit's gain.