The  Disarrangement

 

 

 

 

        The town I live in has a few stories worth repeating, one much more than the others.  Enough people have talked about the baffling problem of the Pelto family, so it seemed all right if I contributed my thoughts as well.  Early on I studied the problem.  There was a very informative afternoon when I listened to the recollections offered by Gretchen Southwood.  As the family's lone available relative with much to say, Gretchen was willing to state opinions that might help the writer more than opinions are likely to help.

        She told me, "In the last month I've been out to their house a couple of times and I've spent more than ten hours looking the place over.  That may sound too meticulous to be true, but it's my sister I'm talking about.  I can't find anything to help clarify it.  Everyone ignores what I say on the subject.  Because I'm the unfriendly sister-in-law that Barry's been tolerating, I'm supposed to keep my mouth shut."   

        Gretchen was leading a class in crafting skills.  The day's group session had finished.  Her classes were held at a place that serves as a community center in St. Helens.  The students had left the center and I had stopped by at the appropriate time, knowing she'd be there.

        Speaking of Time - it's a set of personal comparisons.  In this case the interval was more than a decade.  The mornings I'd spent with a clothing store manager named Barry Pelto were pleasing enough, and they gave me no reason to suspect his motives in a later situation.  His wife Nina, their two children and the comfortable house must have made him happy.  When the news broke a few years ago that they were suddenly missing as a group, I had no ready theory for it.

        I gave my answer to the candid frustration expressed by Nina's sister.  In ten minutes Gretchen had reviewed each of the facts I'd learned, and recalled some I hadn't.  The mood wasn't too emotional.

        I stated, "I'm hearing people suggest a couple of possibilities.  According to the offensive one, suggested by our friend Mel Saunders, the parents were guilty of something criminal, and they assumed a new identity somewhere in order to avoid trouble with law enforcement.  The other possibility is that they've been abducted.  I can think of a third likelihood.  They had a fatal accident, going off the road somewhere, down into a ravine and the car hasn't been found yet."

        So far I wasn't helping her look on the bright side.  There was just a bit more for me to say.

        "I take your word for it you haven't been able to base any clues on some things you heard them talking about.  But you think Norman Davis might know something.  I won't quote you on that, of course.  I'm also hearing various descriptions of the Peltos' house.  Contrary to some reports it isn't a ranch house, and it's no split-level.  I think you'd have to call it a prairie house."

        That was something I mentioned because everyone thought the house was a key to the puzzle.  Gretchen remained silent as I continued.

        "Well, if we're trying to put forth an alternative conclusion about what happened, we need to agree on some basic points.  This Mel Saunders character isn't even a journalist, but he has an audience on the Web, and he may be worse than the professionals.  For myself, I'm going with the belief that the Peltos are alive.  Where, I wouldn't know.  They're gone for five months now, and we don't hear a definite statement about someone's authorized investigation.  What do you think - are they still alive?"

        She said, "I can't be sure they're still alive, and yes, it's a prairie house."

        Gretchen worries about other things, too.  She has regard for conspiratorial notions, and she may be on to something.  That fixation became stronger as she moved into middle age.  And after getting divorced at thirty something she reassumed formal use of her maiden name, Southwood.

        The deed for Barry's property expressed the intention of keeping it in the family, come what may.  The house was available to his sister, Margaret.  She wasn't talking about moving in, didn't mind if Gretchen had access on occasion, and kept an open mind about the future of the place.

        The idea that I'd been fascinated by the Pelto story might amuse those who see me as Desmond Olson, the practical and cautious.  I tried to get a discussion with Norman Davis, but he'd say as little as possible.  He's thought of as Barry's closest friend.  Though he worked for the same company, he was at the corporate office instead of a store.  Another person I've spoken to is Tim Lenzie, a man whose automotive repair shop has done pretty well.  I've known him for a long time too, better than I knew Barry.  His relevance to the Pelto situation is hard to understand.  One person tried to convince the authorities that Tim was part of a group who abducted the family.  His wife made the statements that she could get away with - a divorcing woman's convenient accusations against her husband.  Theirs had previously seemed a strong union.  Before their separation Mr. and Mrs. Lenzie had produced four children.  Norman Davis and Tim Lenzie are still the persons I think of most often when I consider potential sources of information about the mystery.  Though I've spoken to Margaret, she has the same problem I do - no theory.  The other major factor is the residence itself, by no means imposing but somewhat bigger than the average.  The family occupied the place beginning about 1950.  Since the disappearance I've accompanied people to the house on two occasions.  Barry had several dozen acres covered mostly with scrub vegetation and a few Douglas fir.  Encompassing that land was more than a hundred acres of flat landscape, with the scrub thinning out, the fir trees increasing.  Beyond that area the landscape differs considerably. 

        Other persons might be relevant.  Mike Page is the man who was named as a suspect in regard to the supposed abduction.  He was identified as having conspired with someone plotting against the family, but he was sent to prison for an unrelated crime - about which the prosecutor thought he had stronger evidence to work with.  Page later gained some more notoriety by being treated with a psychiatric method supposedly causing him to experience remorse.  The specialists in that kind of therapy manage to baffle the most attentive laymen.  For this case the outcome was mixed at best.  In a series of interviews, Page made allegations that were increasingly far-fetched.  If you believe Mel Saunders the conspiracy buff, Page had thought he was working with a vaguely defined social element.  Not counterculture, not bohemian class, but something else that would be hard for most people to understand.  Still, Mel thinks it was a different conspiracy, having nothing to do with Barry.

        So far the only book devoted to the mystery is by Rita Cromie, who's known for a miscellany of works : true crime, some detective novels and some fiction about high society scandal.  She doesn't pretend to have a case against Mike Page.  But the book is useful, and it seems Norman Davis told her something worth hearing.  He described a selection of Barry's acquaintances I'd never seen and can't recall Barry mentioning.  If Norman gave their names to Rita, she doesn't give them in the book.  It wasn't something he told me about when I talked to him, which was before Rita's book appeared.  He hasn't been available to me since then.

        The book has no explicit accusation against the persons described by Norman.  Rita claims, though, that someone abducted the family, taking them from the isolated house.

        Among other things I asked about when I had my interview with Rita was the 'disarrangement' frequently mentioned in the book.

        She said, "The effect I'm referring to isn't just the normal subversion, the incessant work of agitators.  That work now has an active relation with what's perennial : straight organized crime.  There's a fusion that no one anticipated a few decades ago."

        "And that's what you mean by disarrangement."

        "That's what I mean," she replied.  Her face had a smug expression.  "It isn't my brilliant discovery.  There's a literature on the subject."

        "You think the Peltos were grabbed by the agitators we've always been familiar with," I commented.

        "Yes, but that doesn't narrow the field much."

        At some point I asked her what she thought of the innovative method for producing remorse.  The method's been applied to some of the violent political demonstrators.  Everyone assures me it's had nothing to do, historically, with MK-Ultra.

        Her opinion of said therapy : "It's a parlor trick from the Middle Ages."

        Rita the spinster - I mean Rita the independent woman - had invited me to her normal, adquate house for the conversation.  During our time in the living room she had a lounging posture, and I didn't tell her she couldn't smoke.

        Regarding the missing family she elaborated.  "Barry had a reputation with certain people, maybe not most, that would have him branded a fascist.  No one I talk to seems to think he was outspoken with his political views.  Norman admits that Barry's conservative, but he says the guy knows how to keep his mouth shut.  The problem is, Nina's parents told me she complained about having received a couple of threatening messages - printed paper left on the front porch a couple of times when the family was gone from the house.  Barry didn't take it seriously."

        "Do you know the wording of the messages?"

        Rita nodded.  "Her parents actually had the papers, and they showed me.  There was a threat, but nothing specific.  On the basis of the notes I read it was hard to see what Barry was expected to do if he had to cooperate with the sender.  Of course he could have been instructed somehow."

        Rita's evidence for believing the family was abducted comes in part from the testimony of Pam Glenn, a woman who was trying, she says, to visit Nina one day.  According to Pam, when she drove along the edge of the property towards the driveway, the Peltos were driving out, then turning onto the trail that leads away at a right angle from the main approach.  In the station wagon with the Peltos were a man and a woman that Pam hadn't seen before.  The appointment with Nina wasn't a certainty, and Pam wasn't about to chase the family.  It was the next day before she had suspicions about what she'd witnessed.  Then she told the authorities.

        In my belated serious conference with Tim I summarized Rita's notion of what had happened to Barry and the others.  Tim refused to read the book.  

        I asked him, "You didn't know Barry or Norman, did you?"

        He answered, "I'd heard of Barry, but never seen him or spoke to him.  Never a Norman Davis."

        "And you were questioned by a detective regarding the Peltos."

        Tim described it calmly enough.  "He was doing his job.  Nice guy and all that, but I've no idea what he makes of it or what he makes of me.  I can't complain about those people.  They only approached me once."

        He told me some things about the questioning.  The experience had been more or less dignified.

        I remarked, "We have it pretty good hereabouts, the town of St. Helens.  The cops don't have to rush things or prove too much.  I've lived in other parts of the state before coming here, and I like the tranquil pace we have here.  Downtown big city, things are done a different way."

        Then again, humans are human everywhere.  I thought I wouldn't ask him about his marital problems.  He saved me the trouble.

        "She heard some things from one of her friends," he said.  "Evidently one who knew the Peltos.  Then she took what her friend told her and she got creative.  And she got some help from her brother.  I can't say he was much fun even before all this happened.  He's one of those motorized obese cripples.  There's something about people in wheelchairs who move more quickly than me."

        Tim's feelings were undisguised.  He spoke at length about his domestic ordeal.  Almost none of it actually involved her brother, but Tim referred to him in finishing the narrative.

        My answer expressed a bit of surprise, using a bit of slang that I'd become familiar with only in the last decade.  

        "I believe I saw the moc when I stopped at your place that last time."

        "He was there," Tim acknowledged.

        I doubt that he was impressed when I mentioned a similar problem experienced by a very wealthy CEO.  In describing the embarrassment of the famous businessman, I used the term 'noc.'

        He misinterpreted.  He thought I meant the CEO was a motorized obese cripple.

        "Not a moc," I said.  "A noc."

        It didn't take him too long.  He replied, "Not otherwise charismatic?" 

        "That's right."

        He stated, "I still can't imagine the problems of CEOs."

        That was understandable, but I declared solemnly, "They shouldn't be the objects of hatred."

        He said, "One man's hatred is another man's good clean fun."  About his brush with police investigators he sounded indifferent.  "I can't think of any more details that might be relevant."

        He had stopped short of slandering his brother-in-law.  I asked him for a final comment about the Peltos' disappearance.

        He said, "Abduction - are we sure that's what happened?  People do strange things.  No offense, but for all we know they could have gone somewhere and killed themselves.  It's one of several possibilities.  Only one, and that's what I'm getting at."

        I wasn't disturbed by a suggestion I couldn't refute.

        Finally he told me, "I'm going to be curious about the accusations against me, curious for the rest of my life."

        There was a sense of regret expressed by Barry's sister as well, when I saw her later the same day.  We'd agreed to talk, mostly about her visits with Nina - the last ones before Nina was gone.  I also wanted to know about Margaret's parents.

        "They had this funny idea," she said, "that the property was the best location for survival in case of the social problems that were bound to arise.  They meant the Old World problems, especially the ones of Eastern Europe.  It's hard to believe they meant they wouldn't be noticed by extremists.  Anyway I thought it was a great place to grow up.  But I'd have to say Barry seemed troubled about society, more so than my parents."

        "I wouldn't have guessed it from what Norman told me.  I wouldn't have guessed much of anything." 

        Margaret shook her head sympathetically.  "There was another funny idea.  We thought we'd have our little family cemetery within sight of the house.  Out there to the west, about halfway to the property line.  It didn't happen.  We buried our parents at the cemetery in Forest Grove, close to their friends.  I was disappointed."

        When I asked her if people - besides me - were hounding her for information about her family, she said there hadn't been any such harassment.

        Because of my writings over the years - writings on a range of notorious crimes - I'd already been classified by one journalist as a man who peddles fear and hysteria.  But those were light essays, matters of opinion.  I didn't say that I'd done the research that would have me talking to the original sources.  Yes, I've been considered hopelessly conventional as well as oddly imaginative.  Here's one of my strange notions : a family can have a minor circumstance which tells you more about the family than their best friends can tell you.  I'm still trying to apply this notion to the Peltos.  

        I've learned a colorful fact about Gretchen and her sister.  They've both been proponents for a system of meditative discipline that most people haven't heard of.  Supposedly the ultimate gratification comes from this discipline rather than from sex, drugs or social advancement.  The system is called Vested Potential.  It has a relationship of lineage with, and has moved alongside or away from, the method of therapy used on Mike Page.  According to some presumed experts it can be used to benefit persons without their knowledge.  A nice form of mind control?  In any case, after becoming firmly dedicated to this training, Gretchen and sister had seen each other much less frequently.  They might never see each other again.  I didn't know how to interpret Gretchen's posture of grief. 

        She's related some sort of encounter she had with Pam, which took place in the back yard at the prairie house.  Nina was there, helping her sister explain the benefits of everyone's Vested Potential.  They sat in chairs at a circular table.  Nina gave a splendid presentation, except that Pam wouldn't buy it.  I've no idea whether the information about this kind of proselytizing helps to account for the family's disappearance.   

        You think society is making fortunate strides?  I've gotten to know a man who seems to qualify as a professional agitator.  He likes to say that our contemporary civic unrest is more decisive than anything previous.  Anything in this country, that is.  I asked him how you measure this kind of thing, and the answer he gave was murky enough to suit his purpose.  He believes that when he and his ilk are done with society, it's going to be rearranged without being disarranged.  He's still trying to mobilize the mass of the urban poor.  In the process he'd rid those creatures of ethnic hatred, misogyny and the 'basest nationalism.'  He's less offended by their curse of substance abuse.  His kind of attitude encouraged my loss of enthusiasm for similar striving.  At times my efforts alongside social workers had been professional, at other times voluntary with a greater slant of altruism.  I was intrigued to learn that Gretchen has a finely wrought conspiracy theory that blames any number of things on the class of social workers.  Till now I haven't been able to use it as proof of anything.  But I can say that by the time of my talk with Norman Davis I had settled into a stance of questioning 'the will of the people.'  The mobilizer of the masses doesn't yet know the new Desmond.

        In the official reports about Mike Page we saw some intimation that he'd been feigning a righteous activism.  The misbehavior that got him in trouble was tied in with organized crime.  It was also tied in with groups that foster partisan political street violence.  This was revealed by therapy and the culture of confession.  On balance, though, you can't say he's become a better person.

        Whatever he has or hasn't done, there are some persons to blame for false information about the case.  I know that Tim's unhappy spouse was in the audience at a fund raising event one time when Mel was up front, criticizing some dignitaries.  Afterwards they spoke and he suggested that Barry was avoiding justice.  Eventually her mind received additional stimulation - from Pam Glenn.  After talking to Pam, she took Mel's narrative and gave it a clever twist, at her husband's expense.  Pam, if no one else, thought the store manager had had a nasty problem with Tim.  Beyond that the idea came down to this : if so many people wanted to get rid of Barry, Tim Lenzie must have had the same desire. 

        One rumor has it that Pam was the conspirator who sent the messages received by Nina's parents.  There was a final message, the longest of the letters.  It's much different in content.  Obviously the acreage and the residence were fascinating to someone.  The letter's been shown to a number of people including this writer.

        The nontrivial portion reads, "The closest very noticeable objects to the north are the trees, at least a hundred yards away.  I enjoy the open spaces of the surroundings.  We considered, but then rejected, the proposal to use the house for meetings.  The interior looks attractive, something I could see because no one had drawn shut the curtains of the picture window in the back.  I looked in for twenty minutes at a time.  Barry told me that he plans to leave some items there for storage until he brings the family back, and why don't you two have a look?  See if you want some of that for your own place.  And don't worry about your daughter and the grandchildren.  Right now Barry has better things to do than selling apparel."

        This notice didn't reach the parents until after the publication of Rita's book.

        Barry didn't tell me what he thought of this game called Vested Potential, because I never asked him about it, and that's because at the time I didn't know his wife was cultivating it.  Barry could be interesting and charming when he worked at it.  For the most part he was a dependable and almost-handsome leader of some ordinary persons minding their own business.  He never seemed malicious, though sometimes gruff.  Tim, coming across as more immediately attractive, would have other limitations of course.  My interviews with him and Margaret were pleasant occurrences during the drab weather of mid-April.

        But next month I heard some perplexing news about Gretchen.  Despite having been wary of Norman, it seemed that now she was willing to accept his help.  They were concerned about the Peltos' residence.  A friend who sometimes drove by the place had told her she thought someone was lodging there.  It would be news to Gretchen.  Her consultation with Barry's best friend had one immediate result.  

        Accompanied by Norman and Margaret, she made another visit to the house.

        Inside the house they found a dead man.  He lay in one corner, the spot where they'd kept, for at least a decade, some portraits on a stand.  Recently the stand had been placed elsewhere, probably before the disappearance.  Gretchen first thought the cause of death for this man would have been a stroke.  He was identified before long as Wayne Fraise, a man born and raised in Corvallis and living recently just west of Portland.  Within twenty-four hours of learning this identification, I noticed on Mel Saunder's blog a reference to Fraise.  The claim there was that Fraise had been colluding with Barry Pelto, doing something treacherous.  What, exactly?

        The medical examiner said that Fraise died from an illness, though he seemed unsure which one.

        Gretchen was willing to describe this episode as well as her opinion of Rita's book.  We got together and I drove her to the scene of the crime, scene of the stroke, whatever.

        Inside the room where they'd found Wayne's body she told me, "It looks about the same.  Some furniture still here, but it probably has to go if Margaret decides to move in.  She could do that."

        This was the room with the picture window that someone had gazed through for twenty minutes at a time.  It was different now.  Today if I had come here by myself the curtains would prevent me from looking inside.

        "A good secret place for scheming," I had to admit.

        Gretchen stated, "We couldn't tell if several persons had been here at one time.  If so, Wayne might have been with that group."

        She talked about the sheriff's men being summoned.  She related their actions and comments.  They had spoken mostly to Margaret.

        I asked, "What did Norman make of it?"  

        Now she was a bit more interested.  "He told me the names of some people he knew had been here several times.  He says the people were described in that book by Cromie.  But he didn't say what they did, only the fact that they'd visited a few times.  Once they arrived when he was leaving."

        "Norman's pleading ignorance about all this," I remarked.

        Gretchen answered, "I've heard other people ask him what he thinks.  He won't speculate."

        "You think Rita does a good job in her book?"

        "She does pretty well for such an outsider," Gretchen admitted.  But there was a definite preference.  "I'd like to see a study done by someone from this area.  Maybe you or maybe someone else.  I have one main complaint against Rita Cromie.  She could have done more field work if she really has an idea what happened."

        With that and some other observations, it was clear that she'd read the book.

        I said, "Last month when I talked to Margaret she told me no one was asking her about the family.  That might change because of this."

        "I've asked her what she thinks," Gretchen replied.  "But not too often, and I haven't asked her what she said to the sheriff at headquarters.  Margaret likes to keep quiet."

        "And she didn't recognize Wayne Fraise."

        "That's right."

        Our inspection of the place was cursory.  Before going back to the car we circled the house without saying much.  I did mention the abelia shrubs that grew along the back of the house.  The picture window had the only gap in the shrubbery.  We weren't searching for something in particular.  We didn't think we'd find clues to a homicide if there had been one.  We drove back into St. Helens. 

        A biographical sketch of this man Fraise paints a vivid picture.  His presence at demonstrations and rallies was too sporadic to suggest a solid political commitment.  His left-leaning views were combined with embarrassing allegations about a globalist movement supposedly controlled by space aliens.  He'd spent some time flirting with a very sordid cult.  He'd always been below the poverty line.  If you ranted about white privilege he'd tell you to go bother someone who's affluent.  Once or twice a month, in all but the worst weather, he'd stroll a considerable distance from his neighborhood, which was actually a forested ravine containing a few shanties.  He wasn't communing with nature.  Lester Fraise, an older brother, worried about Wayne's habit of 'spying on people.'  Wayne was also known for frequenting a neighborhood in Portland that might be described as nightclub territory.  Even that might be euphemism.  Whatever his type of recreation, he seemed to enjoy his time spent with a group of those ostentatious homosexuals.

        He's gotten some further attention on the Internet.  I've seen the Mel Saunders website as well as the replies he sent to four websites maintained by other persons.  I won't bother attending one of his group sessions in collective doctrine.  That's because I've heard a recording of the audio from the talk he gave at the WSU branch campus in Vancouver.  His online message is coherent, his performance at the lectern a bit awkward.  He tells us about the culture of direct action.  He believes it has a typical slant - going a certain way instead of other ways.  From his own experience he saw this most convincingly when he spent some time in Los Angeles.  He also finds examples in Oregon.  Regarding other kinds of action, he thinks it was merely a subterfuge when the authorities consigned Page to prison on a charge having nothing to do with the alleged crime against the Peltos.  In Saunders' view of the world, Page has libeled a bishop, vandalized government buildings everywhere and sold meth to teenagers in the name of equality - you get the picture.  

        As a matter of workaday routine, Saunders holes up in an office building that's next to a residential neighborhood.  He's a short, paunchy guy, now in his fifties.  His usual demeanor gives way at times to a fanatic's body language.  Everyday he marches along the sidewalk at lunchtime, taking the same route from his office, on the way to the same cafe.  One time I followed him there and sort of twisted his arm to gain acceptance at his table, gaining time with him face to face.  In a limited way the conference was beneficial.  After giving me some details about his own investigation of the case, he ended with a surprising personal note.

        "What you have to remember about Norman Davis," he began, then shook his head and tried to look sorrowful.  "He just won't tell the truth about Barry's vices.  He knows what those were."   

        I asked him about his use of the past tense.  Was he saying that Barry had reformed?

        He answered, "Oh, I think he's still alive.  But for the people around here it's 'were.'  They'll never see him again."

        "You're pretty sure of that."

        Mel gave a startling report, factual or not, which alleged a persisting malice between the townspeople and Barry Pelto.  The way he described it, the resentment could have provided motives for getting rid of someone.  He said what he thought of certain townsmen.

        He also made it a point to disparage the mystics who blame things on extraterrestrials.  He knew that Wayne had a reputation for such fancy.

        I encouraged further statements of opinion.

        He continued, "Norman has a really strange theory of education.  He thinks the boys and girls in grade school should be completely segregated.  In his recommended system the boys have to be corrected by means of some physical regimen, and music is constantly being used for that.  Even the best boys have to be corrected that way.  He has another premise.  He believes the most important subject for study in the classroom is Geography.  Even Physics would be subject to Geography in his rigid system.  There's also the use of diagrams without using what teachers think of as a textbook."

        "I can't imagine where he'd get this philosophy," I said, though something did occur to me soon afterward.

        Mel explained, "It's a recognizable failure - just the fact that he's obsessed with a small range of human experience."

        And Mel Saunders wasn't?

        I asked, "Why don't I believe you?"

        He wasn't shaken by my tough-mindedness. 

        He commented, "When I talked to Norman last year he told me some things about his family line going back a couple of centuries.  A few of the details were the kind that might be embarrassing to most people.  Norman isn't afraid of the nitty-gritty.  So he has a family background for his views on education."

        This was interesting, but it wasn't constructive or plausible.  I'd rather learn some facts.  By facts I don't mean a modified and watered-down form of someone's Vested You-Know-What.  It may be that Norman and Gretchen were influenced by the same esoteric strand.  Mel appeared to be sincere in giving the description.  But I said good-by to this outspoken citizen, telling him unconvincingly that I'd see him again.  I think he's contributed more than his share to the ongoing disarrangement. 

        I've stayed calm any time I've had to be present when the police were confronting the lawbreakers.  There have been a few times.  My life is not very dramatic or valiant - other persons doing the same kind of work have the same experience and they don't get hurt.  In tracking down leads about the Peltos I interviewed a man who'd been in prison a short time and will be there for decades to come.  It isn't Mike Page.  For several years he was a member of the dreadful world that's crawling with repeat offenders.  Then he was removed from that world by offending with such abandon.  He saw the uptick in crossover between outright criminals and high-sounding activists.  You can talk to him if you'd like to understand the protesters' creative imagination.  You won't just be learning from a handbook.  He claims he spoke to Barry Pelto in the basement of a suburban house that was being used for indoctrination efforts.  Perhaps it was even being used for tactical training, though he won't say so.  In this man's view Barry was overconfident.  More notable was the fact that he agreed with everything he was being told by the organizers, and the fact that he outdid them with more extreme object lessons.  My informant could see that Barry had some talent.  But that was the last he heard of Barry.

        Why was Fraise at the Pelto residence?  I kept wondering about that when I made my most recent visit to the place.  I was accompanied by a news reporter.  My interest this time was the outbuilding that's used for the storage of maintenance gear.  I'd been given a key and was authorized to look through the storage.  

        After five minutes in the shed I was examining one object that had nothing to do with maintenance.  It was a sign made of lightweight material.

        Jud came over and read aloud the sign's imperative slogan.

        "Emasculate Authority!"

        That was one I hadn't seen before.  It would look great being hoisted over the snarling faces of the demonstrators.  On the other side of the placard, in one corner, a name worth noticing had been etched in.  Michael Franklin Page.

        "That must mean something," I suggested.

        "The one and only Mike Page," the reporter said.  He knew all about the felon so named.  

        For maybe thirty seconds we said nothing.  If Jud was concentrating on some prior situation, I was merely passive - one who senses the insufficient light coming through the small windows of the shed.

        But when I resumed speech, my theory was straightforward.  "I'm guessing that Mike didn't leave this here, one of his friends did.  Wayne was here along with some righteous types fond of disturbing the peace, and glorious plans were being formulated.  They had a key to the house and a key to the shed.  They had no reason not to leave the sign here when they left."   

        Jud said, looking at the placard, "If that's Mike's own slogan, it doesn't jibe with some other values he had.  He was supposed to be adept with Vested Potential.  That was the authority he claimed to believe in.  Activists have picked up on it.  But it's going in every direction.  Vested Potential, or something like it, was used against him in prison."

        "Against?  Even though it could improve his life?" 

        So far the confusion wasn't letting up.  Since this talk, though, I've heard about the charade in Portland at the Moda Center - the selection of notable achievers confessing their peculiar sins.  A sizable crowd was there for the show, and it was flamboyant piety.  Not the usual grief concerning the oppressed minorities, women, etcetera, but other kinds of offenses.  You'd expect them to say it's no one else's business.  Vested Potential is gaining ground.

        We spent five minutes looking at the rest of the items in the small building.  I think the reporter had already integrated this look-see with a relevant but minor disclosure about the people who used to live here.  It showed up in the article he ran a few days later.

        "Mike would have to seem insincere about politics," Jud finally remarked.  "Very outspoken, very doctrinaire, but his mind was on something else.  I guess he could have been here sometime when the Peltos were still here."

        "Not that the police would look into it," I said.

        Jud commented, "My employer tells me to keep doing profiles of the rabble rousers.  It's lively enough."  He looked around at the collection.  With a bit of sarcasm he asked, "Anything else here worth mentioning?"

        "I'm done with it."

        Before leaving the property I lingered.  When I saw Jud's car moving into the distance I began walking slowly around the house, now and then stopping to consider an aspect of the building's design.  I had what seemed a drastic intuitive breakthrough.  The unknown woman that Pam said was riding with the Peltos in their station wagon wasn't described in Rita's book.  One of Barry's unidentified guests referred to in the same chapter - also a woman - was described in detail.  I can't argue conclusively that it's the same person, but I think it is.  I also think she's the one who wrote the final unsigned message to the Southwoods.  Then again, I had no intuitions about Pam's importance as a guest here.  Had she visited very often?  Gretchen didn't seem sure about that.  From my earliest visits to this place I remembered the standard, noncircular picnic table, placed out there in the yard, away from the patio.  No table was there now.

        I have another conjecture : Wayne was one of the persons that Norman described when he was talking to Rita Cromie.  These persons had been Barry's visitors, and perhaps, abductors.  Rita couldn't have known that Wayne was included if Norman didn't identify him.  But suppose he did give the man's name and Rita had known it for some time before the corpse was found?

        The attempt to inspire can be dangerous.  A person who comes to mind is an author I've spoken to on several occasions.  He told me that one of his cousins was killed in the street demonstrations of 2020.  His book on the subject of true crime refers to the cousin but doesn't dwell overmuch on that fatality in relation to the ongoing nationwide violence.  His book and his essays complain about the specter of mind control, but contrary to his belief the actual manipulation results from the publicity system at large, not some secret agency.  He's a tragic example.  I don't think he's been associated with believers in Vested Potential, but he seemed a kindred spirit.  He was well known for communicating on blogs and appearing on TV talk shows.  Naturally I couldn't see him after he accused me of taking part in the fatal mistreatment of Barry Pelto.  That's right, me too!  He also accused me of being a central player in the on-again, off-again civil disturbances happening in St. Helens during the pandemic.  But I'd have to say it's odious the way his drastic mental collapse was displayed on video, and the video gone viral.  Nor do I like the looks of that facility where they're keeping him.  

        A round of malice broke loose in the final three weeks before this paper was handed to the publisher.  Interviewed in Willamette Week, Norman has made an allegation that changes almost anyone's perspective on the missing man.  It's one more claim that isn't made in Rita's book.  He tells us that Barry had a gradual conversion to something in the direction of Antifa.  That sort of restive group has been gathering at the otherwise empty house now and then.  This had not been obvious.  The statements made in the newspaper have prompted some comments about hooligans, comments by readers who say nothing about the Peltos.  Wayne could have been part of the group there at the house when he suddenly expired.  I suspect they believed they had nothing to lose if they left him there.  Norman says he wasn't able to guess the involvement of such people when he and the women found Wayne's corpse.  Never having - so he claims in the interview - seen the man prior to this, he'd assumed that Wayne was a homeless person who'd stumbled onto a convenient residence.  He says it was quite some time before he guessed the truth.

        A person I won't identify for now has texted me with confirmation that Barry moved to the opposite side, politically speaking.  This person says that Barry's actual commitments were not well-known.  I admit that I'd never sensed a definite conservatism when I paid my visits.  I did sense a reserve on his part, one that I was willing to let be.  Norman's disclosure seems to have been prompted by our democracy's most recent wave of social turbulence, one that's happening here in St. Helens, of all places. 

        Margaret's another one who got to know Pam Glenn, but her opinions are more about that woman's associates rather than Pam herself.  There have been reports along with opinions.  Margaret claims that she observed physical violence, but I'm not sure when it supposedly happened.  Her testimony was filed with the prosecutor.  She says almost nothing about the current situation of her brother and his family.  It's both pleasant and scary to think she's going to expose a major strand of organized crime in its alliance with demonstrators.  I think few witnesses would have more consequence.

        Nevertheless Gretchen has come back into the picture by telling me about a man who confessed to having heard Barry's candor : the clothing store manager was going to take part in some felonious, left-wing provocation.  I spoke to the person who made this claim, and he acknowledged what Barry had told him.  He also informed me of some crimes committed by Pam Glenn.  On the other hand, by now the accepted wisdom - not just my intuition - tells us that she wasn't the one who sent those anonymous notes.

        The most important situation relevant to these things would be the online disclosure concerning some government officials and some other persons, all of them residing in or near St. Helens.  Questions about the missing family would also be questions about the social circle which is emphasized by the disclosure.  Investigators and acquaintances expect the family to remain a question mark.  But it's reasonable to suppose that the group making use of the prairie house after the family's disappearance would know something about the disappearance.  The interrogators of Mike Page haven't gotten him to confess about that, assuming he knows something.  Will they?

        I strongly believe, based on confidential statements, that this elite social circle had much to do with Barry's conversion.  'Gradual' transformation of his views probably took at least a year.  There's no doubt that he had written a journal espousing a set of principles, but no one seems to have a copy.  I spent some time questioning Lester Fraise, who tells me that his ideas about the disappearance would be accepted if not for the desperation of pandemic-related measures and protests.  He doesn't base those ideas on his sibling's unique perspective.  He makes a not so brotherly dismissal of Wayne's reasoning.  Lester knows very well the protests and counterprotests that have entertained a metropolitan community.  He's never met Barry, but he read Norman's Willamette Week interview.  He claims to know of other such persons unaccounted for.  Most but not all of those persons had taken to the streets with their sense of indignation.

        Despite Lester's low opinion of Wayne, they've shared a belief in fantastic events.  The surviving brother expresses a dogmatic assurance that the Peltos were forcibly relocated to a very distant place : the Kepler-42 planetary system.  Those aliens don't answer to the creatures of earth.   

        More seriously, a major occurrence in this case has been determined by a very surprising judicial action.  Mike Page, Pam Glenn and two of their accomplices have been sent to Camp Goble, in northwest Oregon.  That facility is known for its peculiar philosophy of incarceration.  It's based on a 21st century breakthrough.  The overseers work to inspire the inmates, applying a method which produces remorse, confession and penance.