Incident At Monticello

Daniel Rengaw “(POV)” is a published Historical Novelist drawn into a historical mystery. First, by a letter quilled by Thomas Jefferson. The letter holds the signature of Jefferson and is dated more than one hundred and eighty years after his death ‘The Document’, as it becomes known, is curiously found on the writing desk in Jefferson’s Study at Monticello. A place where it shouldn’t be. A place that few have access to.

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation pushes the story further toward the murky as it determines that The Document could have indeed been penned by Jefferson. However, there are below the surface motives that may have skewed their analysis. These motives are both personal and internal. The internal: Fame driven greed of a Department Head. The personal: The same Department Head’s warm-for-the-form of Pamila Rengaw; Danny’s wife of thirty years. Both the Internal and Personal are over the shoulder glances that are looked at throughout the story.

Doctor Rengaw is intrigued by a 63 page hand written political dossier sent him. The dossier’s implied meaning for our country, and the fact that it contains the same unknown acronym as The Document, furthers to tickle his curiosity. There is also confusion about an article in a Virginia newspaper. The Managing Editor can’t explain its origin or how it got into the edition. Rojer Ousten, Curator at Monticello and long time High School buddy of Danny’s, begs him to come to Monticello. For these reasons and others, Daniel agrees to go to Jefferson’s home. His going is a balancing act; solving the origin of The Document, and helping his friend with a Press Conference designed by the Monticello Foundation as a fund raiser. Daniel’s visit to Monticello is brief at only 48 hours. Yet it is never without happenings. A tumultuous Pacific wave rolling continual across the ocean.

Monticello Foundation Chairman Peter Henderson, Rojer, and Daniel, attend a briefing with the FBI at Quantico. Assistant Director and Mr. Henderson’s friend, leads the analysis of the events that place The Document in the Study. This analysis determines a two second glitch in the digital security video from Jefferson’s Study. This glitch, this unexplained anomaly, is termed by the FBI as a Plasmic Event.

That same evening while asleep at Monticello, Danny has a sleep walking experience. Danny has been a sleep-walker since childhood. That morning recalling his sleeping travel with Rojer, he tells of a dream conversation with Thomas Jefferson in the study. Together they view the digital surveillance of the Study. There is a similar glitch. A very similar two second glitch. Perhaps a Plasmic Event.

This sends them in search of answers. Along the way they visit with the writer of the Dossier. They visit again only to find that he does not exist. They bump into other people that help them to find their answers. People that help; people that create questions.

Daniel’s rink skating mind glides a continual circle of confusion. Nothing is clear. Then some focuses. In the end of this Part One, he thinks he understands what he is supposed to; what they need him to. But it is this why they want him to know, and the what they want him to do with it; this is his new wrestle. With this, in this, he leaves Monticello. Intent to answer the what.

The two friends pull the reader within themselves as they share that which comes truest from the heart. Danny’s visit is laced with emotion, humor, anger, and searching for the truth. This travel passes close to some that once were here, again here, and again gone. Figures, that only in the end, are seen as who they are. Or who they were. Historical Icons.

This smallest part of the body as I have just time-lined, is only the skeleton. The heart of the body is the true being of the story. There are the lives of the characters. Lives that are cloaked with struggles, abuse, victories, and walks that still need to come to end.