EJ was congratulating himself on his productive morning while he ate his club sandwich at the cafe two doors down from Caribou Coffee. It was now shortly after 1330 hours. He had been able to speak with two clients on the East Coast about a letter that they would be getting from the developer of a real estate project in Vail, Colorado that had hit a snag. Some yahoo inspector in the Eagle County Engineer's office had demanded an architectural change in the first building now going up. It would throw things back almost a month. What a crock. But getting the information to the clients was a good move and would eliminate a surprise to them and an angry call to EJ.
There was also some good work done on an open IRS dispute on another client's taxes from 2009 and 2010. The Service had disputed the depreciation and investment interest deductions on those returns. EJ hadn't been able to educate the young agent who had conducted the original audit, and who wrote up the disallowances, but her supervisor sounded a little more flexible this morning. The "new" IRS was no different from the old IRS, EJ thought to himself. His clients were mostly "99 percenters", and the agents went by the book with those taxpayers. Everything was a battle.
Finally, he had been able to put together a couple of proposals for one of his other major clients, Richard Longwood, that had been on his to-do list for almost a month. Richard was thinking of pulling in his risk-profile and wanted some suggestions from EJ on hedging alternatives. EJ had called this morning a contact with the Notre Dame Endowment office who had a lot of experience with alternative investments. The results of that call and his subsequent research produced some documentation that Richard was really going to like. EJ smiled as he considered the unexpected progress of getting that project off the starting blocks.
EJ motioned to his waitress for his check. He had plenty of time to make the 3 PM meeting, but he needed to get back to the hotel to make his 1400 late-check-out time, and he thought he wanted to take a short drive around town before going over to Badger Ag. As he crossed the parking lot back to the Hampton, his cell phone rang. "EJ here", he answered.
"Mr. McKay, this is Rhonda Reynolds from Badger Ag. I hate to say this, but Mr. Mandel is still at O'Hare. They're in line for take-off, but it looks like the earliest you will be able to meet with him is 4PM. He still wants to do the meeting today. Is this a problem for you?"
As he listened to Rhonda, EJ was steaming. He was screwed. "I can't say that I'm thrilled at that, Rhonda, but yes, I'll be there at 4. Anything else?"
"No. But Mr. Mandel did say that he would like to take you and the other gentlemen to dinner at the Hiawatha Golf Club after the meeting. He hoped that you would be able to stay. Will you?"
Again, EJ grated his teeth. "At this point, yes, I'll stay. But I may leave early so that I can get home tonight. I'll see you guys at 4." He disconnected the call as he walked into the hotel lobby. He sat down in one of the arm chairs in a small alcove by the elevator and pulled up his calendar on his iPad. He only had two things scheduled for Friday, a routine monthly conference call at 1000 with one of his money managers in Minneapolis, and a 2PM meeting in Iowa City with a broker who wanted to bring EJ in as the advisor to a corporate retirement plan account. Both of those commitments could be moved to next week without a problem.
EJ stood and walked over to the lobby counter. The representative's name-tag said, "Kristen."
"Well, Kristen, I had hoped to check out now, but it looks like my day has blown apart, so if its not a problem, I'd like to keep my room another night. How's that look? I'm in 314"
Kristen smiled and said, "Let's see. Hmmm. 314? Mr. McKay? Yes. I see now. Actually, Mr. McKay, just as I thought, we have plenty of rooms open tonight. It will be no problem for you to stay where you are. I can even give you the same rate. Please initial here so that I can record everything for our system."
EJ signed off on the card, thanked Kristen for her help, and took the stairs up to his room. He called his office to let them know that he was being delayed, and had his assistant call his Friday appointments to make alternative arrangements for next week. He checked the securities markets and was relieved to see that trading had been flat all day. He activated his Out-of-Office response on his email, and then took a quick look at Tomah on Google Maps to make sure he knew the town's general lay-of-the land to find Badger Ag. Satisfied that Tomah was small enough that he couldn't get lost, he headed out for his car.
The Hampton was on the North side of town so EJ took a right out of the parking lot onto Superior Avenue and headed South toward what should be the center of town. He knew that the county seat was Sparta, a bigger town a few miles to the West on I-90, so there wouldn't be a courthouse square. But these small Midwest farm towns had a tendency to keep active "Main Streets", especially when there wasn't a Walmart too close by to make life hard on the independent merchants.
"Wow," EJ said to himself. "Either the city maintenance folks here are all Master Gardeners, or they have a Fairy Godmother taking care of non-essential services." The gazebo at the center of the park was also immaculate in design and condition. The gazebo rested on a wide, stage-like platform that had two steps built all the way around on all four sides for ease of access. All EJ could think of was to question whether the movie Pollyanna might have been filmed in Tomah!
He took a minute to walk to the other side of the park and saw a small plaque mounted in a large stone sitting amoung a separate garden of sparkling, multi-colored blooming flowers. The plaque said:
Veteran's Memorial Park
Gardens and Gazebo
Dedicated July 1, 1984.
And then in lettering at the bottom of the plaque that EJ actually had difficulty reading, was the acknowledgement:
Funded and Maintained by the O'Rourke Family Charitable Foundation.
EJ read that acknowledgement two more times to confirm he was reading exactly what he thought he was reading. "I'll be darned. My workout and coffee acquaintance might have been holding back on me. I guess she did say that her Daddy had had enough money left over to do some legacy funding for the town. Remind me to ask a follow-up question or two on that next time, Sherlock."
Still working through the realization that Maddie O'Rourke had probably sand-bagged him a little in their coffee-shop conversation, EJ returned to his car and continued his drive South on Superior. He still had about 45 minutes until the meeting at Badger Ag so he pulled into a Shell station located at a bigger intersection near the edge of town to fill up on gas.
While the gas was pumping, he had the thought that maybe he should use this time before the meeting to do a little Internet searching on Tomah, the O'Rourke Family Charitable Foundation, and just maybe, some information on Daddy O'Rourke. He didn't like surprises, and he now had that sinking feeling that it was a flicker that he had seen on Maddie's face as he left her at Caribou. "Okay, Maddie O'Rourke, I'm game. I was born in the dark, but not last night. Just what am I in for at Badger Ag?"
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