Jessup did some checking around and managed to get a light lunch in for Fir. He picked up the sandwich and took a big bite out of it, then gagged and spat it back out on his plate. Reg gasped, shocked, and started forward.
“What is it? Are you okay?”
He opened the sandwich and looked inside. With an expression of revulsion, he pulled out the layers of processed meat, leaving just a tomato slice and some limp lettuce. “Gnomen do not eat creatures!”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” Reg looked at Jessup. “Did you know?”
In spite of her complexion, Jessup had turned slightly pink. “I… might have heard gnomes were vegetarian,” Jessup said, looking at the meat Fir had disposed of, “but I don’t deal with gnomes very often. I didn’t think of it. I’m sorry,” she addressed Fir, “I didn’t mean to give you something you don’t eat.”
He gave a curt nod and bit into the sandwich.
Reg looked over at Jessup. “So, any progress being made on getting him out of here?”
“I think it will work out. Someone should be here to tell us… hopefully, it won’t be too much longer.”
“And what about my plot?” Fir asked. “I am going back to my living.”
“Uh… I don’t know.” Reg raised an eyebrow at Jessup. “He is going to go back to where he’s been living. What’s going to happen if he does that?”
“He’ll probably be arrested again for trespassing. Or vagrancy. Whatever it takes to get him back off of it again so that they proceed with the development.” She shrugged. “There’s not much we can do about that. They have all of the appropriate permits, so it is going ahead, whether Mr. Blumenthal likes it or not.”
Reg frowned. She shook her head. “There must be a way to stop it.”
“Sometimes there are ways… but I don’t think you’re going to find any way to get them to stop at this point. All of that has to be addressed during the public hearings that happened long before this. Any objectors are expected to speak up and voice their opinions then.”
“But Fir can’t talk in a forum like that.”
“That’s the law. He could have taken an interpreter or someone to speak for him. But if he doesn’t have any objection during those stages, he’s missed the boat. It isn’t like it is a historical site, or native land, or a graveyard. They are going to go ahead with development.”
“What if… how about if there was a rare species discovered there? Some animal habitat… Then they would have to stop, wouldn’t they?”
She’d heard of such things on TV. Maybe they could put some rare species there, or at least tell the authorities that they had seen one, which would give them the time to cook up something more permanent. The developers would have to take a few days at least to either confirm or refute the claim.
“Hmm.” Jessup shrugged with one shoulder. “It’s a possibility, I guess. But you can’t go to the police with that. You’ll have to find the proper authority. Department of the Environment maybe. And you’ll have to do it quickly because they have probably started by now. I can’t see them waiting around once Mr. Blumenthal was out of the way. They’d know that he might not be in jail for very long. If he really were an activist, he probably would have been out early this morning.”
Reg’s stomach knotted. She had hoped to get a jump on the developers, but Jessup was probably right. They had probably started bulldozing the moment Fir had been arrested. She pulled out her phone and looked at it. Finding the proper government agency could be complicated. She was sure to end up mired in the bureaucracy. Even government organizations that tried to be transparent and accessible usually ended up being so complicated that it was impossible for Joe Blow off the street to sort it out.
“Tell me about the plants and animals in your garden. Do you have anything rare? That there isn’t much left of in the world?”
Fir considered the question. He put down his half-eaten sandwich and licked his fingers.
“Humans like to kill plants.”
“Yes… but not the last of a species. They try not to wipe something off of the earth forever.”
“There is the white glory. Humans call it beach clustervine. Very hard to find now. Not many places left that it can grow.”
“Perfect. Beach clustervine.” Reg considered her plan of attack. She looked over at Jessup. “You might want to go for a walk.”
“What?”
“I think… you might not want to hear what I’m going to say. You should go for a walk, stretch your legs, see how things are coming along out there. Tell them that Mr. Blumenthal is ready to go home and is talking about calling… a lawyer or some advocacy group.”
Jessup got slowly to her feet. “Just what do you have in mind?”
“Didn’t I just tell you that you don’t want to know? Why would you ask?”
The policewoman still hesitated. But after looking at Reg for another minute, she finally decided to go with what Reg had said and made herself scarce. She left the room. Fir watched Reg curiously, his eyes bright. He was eager to get home, but he was interested in what she was doing.
Reg did a quick internet search and called the local TV station. She bullied her way through the gatekeepers and, in a few minutes, was talking with Buzz Rockwell—his real name—who was the go-to news anchor for Black Sands news.
“It’s a human-interest story,” Reg said. “Big corporation versus the environment. But you need to get on it right away and get a camera crew going, or it’s going to be too late to stop the destruction.”
“What exactly do you have?” Buzz asked cautiously.
“A developer has had the police arrest the last of the squatters on their property and is ready to destroy one of the last places on earth where beach clustervine grows wild.”
“What is that?”
“It’s a plant. An endangered species. This is one of the only places in the world clustervine grows. If they raze it for a new highway and housing development, they are doing incalculable damage to the environment. Besides the fact that they are taking homes away from the indigent and using their size to commit injustices.”
“Where is this? Can you meet me there? Show me the plant in question? We’ll need proof before we start throwing accusations around.”
“I’ll get over there when I can, but right now, I’m trying to get this man out of jail. He’s the only one who can show you where it is growing.”
Reg described the best she could where Fir’s patch was and emphasized again how they had nearly run him over with the bulldozer and would have the plant swept out of existence before anyone could stop them if Buzz delayed getting there.
After some more discussion, Buzz agreed to get his camera crew over there to see if he could stop the development. Reg would continue to work on freeing Fir and would join Buzz as soon as she could so that they could show him and the developers the location of the rare flowering vine.
Reg hung up, then looked over at Fir, wondering what he would think of her approach.
He gave her a bright smile. “You are very good at outside talking.”
Reg laughed. “Yes, I’ve got a mouth on me. I’ll admit that!”
“You will get me back to my patch?”
“Sooner or later. Hopefully, sooner.”
On cue, the door was opened by a policeman Reg hadn’t yet met. He was wearing a uniform that was slightly different from the others Reg had seen. No duty belt; he was not on the front lines fighting crime in Black Sands. He was an older, balding man, on the short side, but not nearly as short as Fir and Forst. He smiled reassuringly and sat in one of the empty seats.
“Hi, my name is Darcy. I’m sorry for all of the trouble that you’ve been through. I’m here to see that everything is straightened out.”
Reg raised her brows. “I’ll believe that when I see it.”
“I want to thank you for advocating for Mr. Blumenthal. It is important that someone stand up for the… less fortunate in our society. For those who are not as able to speak for themselves.”
Reg thought that was an insensitive thing to say in front of Fir, but she said nothing, sitting back with her eyebrows raised waiting for Darcy to explain what he was going to do for them. She didn’t need any false praise. She didn’t need cops pretending that they cared about what happened to Fir Blumenthal. If they had the kind of environment where all people were treated with respect and the presumption of innocence, they wouldn’t be where they were, and Fir would not have a black eye.
“I’m sorry it has taken so long for us to mobilize and get into a position where we can help you. It doesn’t usually take that long. Thank you for your patience.”
Fir looked at Reg. “What does this human want?”
“He wants to make sure you don’t sue him,” Reg returned, speaking aloud so that Darcy could hear her. “He’s just trying to cover his butt now.”
“I can understand your perspective,” Darcy admitted. “I hope that you will accept our apologies and understand that we have the greatest respect for the citizens of Black Sands and have no desire to see injustices done. Mr. Blumenthal was in an awkward position, and perhaps it could have been handled better. I’m just glad that we could figure this out right away and get on top of it now.”
“So how are you on top of it? Are you ready to let him go?”
Darcy hesitated for a moment, maybe deciding just how much more smoke he should try to blow in Reg’s direction. He rightly concluded that his approach wasn’t getting anywhere with Reg. She’d been involved with too many police officers and in too many other sticky situations to believe anything that came out of his mouth.
“We believe that there has been a misunderstanding with Mr. Blumenthal,” Darcy said slowly. “The officers at the scene were led to believe that he was a saboteur when perhaps he was only exercising his right to free speech… at any rate, we greatly regret that he suffered an injury while in the cell and that more action wasn’t taken to facilitate communication… Maybe if he had asked for you when he was first arrested… if he had a card saying that he needed assistance or to call you in the event of an emergency…”
“So you’re letting him go?” Reg demanded.
“Uh… yes. We will see to his immediate release. Again, if we had realized at the time…” Darcy trailed off, unable to give a full explanation. He shrugged dramatically. “I’m sorry for any distress…”
“Just get his possessions and get us signed out. He would like to be able to get back to his home before it is bulldozed into the ground.”
Darcy tugged at his uniform collar. “Yes, of course. I hope that no permanent harm has been done…”
“Oh, you’ll hear from us about that.”
Darcy looked at her for another moment, his face pale and grave. Then he got up and retreated. Off to get Fir’s possessions and get them on their way, she hoped.
Fir looked relieved. He nodded his head vigorously at Reg. “Yes, you are very good with outside words,” he complimented her again. “You know how to talk to humans.”
“Some humans. I’ll drive you back to your plot, and talk to the TV guy and developers, and hopefully, that will mean a temporary stay to the development while they figure out what they have to do. They should be required to protect the habitat of the clustervine, but I don’t know how much space they will have to leave around it, whether it’s just the plant itself, or a wider area…”
“More than one plant,” Fir advised. “A colony.”
“Oh, good. That should give you more space, then. They’ll have to protect the colony somehow.”
“Humans protecting plants?” he asked skeptically and shook his head. As far as he was concerned, humans were in the business of harming plants, not saving them. A position that was usually true. Reg had to admit that while she enjoyed walking through a garden or hiking through a wilderness area, she never gave much thought to the plants themselves and who tended them or what their needs were.
Did plants have feelings? Did they know Fir cared for them? It had never occurred to her that they might have any level of sentience, but Fir’s attitude toward them was more like a parent for a child than someone who just watered and fertilized plants.
“Of course plants have feeling,” Fir said, a wrinkle in his brow.
Reg hadn’t realized that she’d been so open with her thoughts. “I never knew that. What kind of feelings do they have?”
Fir’s eyes rolled toward the ceiling as he considered. “They have likes and not. They know who cares for them. They can be hurt.” He looked back at her again, checking to make sure she understood.
“That’s amazing. I never knew that. I thought they were just… inanimate.”
Fir shook his head like she was being foolish. “They are living things,” he pointed out. “They are not dead.”