Harry drove home, satisfied that he had fired the opening salvo of what he fully intended to be a war.
I thought that woman was going to have a heart attack”, Helen said. “And a lot of the others weren’t much better. How’d you know she’d had an abortion when she was 18?”
Harry smiled. “My cousin ran the camp where she was a councilor and he arranged for the abortion. Knowing her parents, he felt sorry for her and kept it quiet at the time. He met her again years later, after she had gone all holier-than-thou and her hyporisy ticked him off. He told me all about it. As far as the others, it was really a guess, but did you notice how many of them reacted?” He chuckled. “And I did a little digging into the past of that preacher. He got his degree from a diploma mill and started his own church mostly because established congregations didn’t want him. Ten years ago he was living hand-to-mouth, running a tiny mission in the seedier part of Chicago. Two years ago he showed up here with enough cash to build a church. I’m still tracking it down, but it seems he hooked a wealthy, senile patron who willed him her estate and died before the family found out about it. There was a lawsuit but it never went to court. I suspect the legitimate heirs paid him off just to go away. Morally questionable at the very least.”
Helen laughed. “Okay, one down and one to go. Who’s your next target?”
“I haven’t decided, but I’ll tell you something. In this day and age, privacy is pretty much non-existent. The only people who are unknown are those business and government don’t feel are worth the trouble. They probably know a lot about me but probably very little about you. Homeless people don’t interest corporations or governments unless they make trouble. Then they’re just stepped on but are still mostly anonymous.”
“Yeah, we always told ourselves we were nobodies, at least nobody anyone cared about. It hurt at first, but you get used to it.”
“Nobody should be treated like a nobody”, Harry said. “I’m going to spend the rest of my life and whatever it takes to remedy that.”
“You can’t support all the homeless”, Helen said, “no matter how rich you are.”
“No, but I msy be able to change things so that homelessness is no longer socially and politically acceptable. I don’t have to do it all by myself. What did you find out about that kid?”
“He was there was as an assignment for his journalism class, documenting an anti-abortion protest. He thinks they’re a bunch of assholes and was delighted when you shot down Mrs Howe. He recorded the whole thing.”
“I’d hoped it was something like that. Did you ask him to give me a call?”
“Sure did. He promised to call you tonight. He has a serious case of hero worship.” She grinned. “He could have done worse”.
Harry smiled.