Out of the Cold Dark Sea

by Jeffrey D Briggs

  My dear Martha, I cannot, of course, tell you what to do with this material if it is now in your possession. Nor can I anticipate the threat it may pose to you or to those around you should it become known that you possess it. My dying wish is that you take it to Mr. Trammell for publication. If you feel unable to for safety’s sake, I understand completely. I have done my part. If I am dead, the decision is entirely yours. You may think of it as mere revenge for Eric, but I believe it goes beyond that—exposing something many have tried but failed to expose before—the sinister secrets of the LDS church.

  There will be no pause in the march of the universe if my findings remain unpublished. You may think it a just revenge. Yet I believe no person will have quite the same thoughts about the LDS church should this dirty little secret be brought out of the darkness into the light.

  The cabin, commit it to fire, if you’d be so kind. I am the last Chappell of the polygamist clan, each with a cabin on Ebenezer Lane. Numbers 2 and 3 Ebenezer Lane have long since turned to ash. As once before near a frozen lake you found fire a step toward closure, may you begin reconciling with my death as the cabin flares into flame and dies down to ash.

  I have named you Executor of my estate and my sole heir. There is only one condition: if Dante outlives me, he is to reside with you and Beatrice until the end of his natural days. All the proper documents, signed and notarized, are in my houseboat. I did not involve you with drawing up of my Last Will & Testament only because I wished to avoid the fight your protests would invoke. You’ll find them in a file named such in my desk at home.

  Dearest Martha, I have been blessed to have known and loved you. I only wish to have eternity to savor the joy and happiness you have brought an old man in his declining years. May you continue to be a woman of grace and conviction, blessed in life and blessed in love.

  As always, your most humble and respectful friend and servant,

  Hewitt

  Martha sat without moving for a long time, trying to come to terms with one more person gone from her life without the chance to say goodbye, without the chance to tell him she loved him. Maybe she had been wrong about his disappearance. The premonitions of his death were there the moment she saw the waters of Puget Sound lapping over his van. She glanced at the letter again. It was dated September 14, over four months ago. Yet Hewitt had given no indication of his fears when they were carving pumpkins for Halloween or eating Thanksgiving turkey. No mention of it when they gathered at the Carriage House for their Christmas gift exchange; said nothing when she dropped a bottle of Jean Milan Carte Blanche Brut off for New Year’s. The certainty that she would find her way to 4 Ebenezer Lane and find his farewell letter left little doubt that he had seen this end. And she realized now that his cryptic messages were meant both to protect her in their secrecy and to lead her to the Ballard Gazette where she could finish his work. How could he ever imagine all that was to come?

  She sank to the floor and rocked back and forth. For the first time, she mourned the loss of her friend with tears.

  When Martha came out of the bedroom, she carried the stack of papers and leather-bound books. Trammell’s shadow covered the small table. He was outside, removing the shutters from the windows. Light streamed in.

  Illuminating the smoke that started to pour out of the fireplace.

  Martha dumped the papers and books on the table and rushed over to it. She stumbled on the Indian rug, catching herself just before she fell headlong into the flames. She found the damper and gave it a quarter turn. The smoke immediately rose up the chimney. The flames shot up with the infusion of fresh air and began to crackle and pop as the wood began to blaze. Coughing, she fanned the smoke away.

  Trammell stepped back inside. “Wow, seems like a lot of smoke.”

  “You forgot to open the damper,” Martha said, struggling to control her coughing.

  “Of course. Sorry.”

  “Open the doors. It’ll air out in a few minutes.” She stepped back from the fireplace, relieved at being thrown into action even if just for a moment. In the kitchen, she found the latch for the window and pushed it out. Trammell opened the backdoor, and cold winter air began to swirl through the cabin before funneling toward the open door.

  Martha turned toward the cupboards, examining the shelves. “Flour and yeast. We could make bread. Sugar. Soups. Peet’s coffee, French Roast. Nice choice, even if a little stale. And half-a-dozen cans of condensed milk. Top Ramen. Haven’t seen that since I was in college. Enough beans to give gas to all of Tropic. Pasta and marinara sauce in a can. I can make dinner.”

  “That would be nice.” Trammell took a package of freeze-dried mushrooms from her hand and set it back on the shelf. He glanced at the papers on the table. “Whoa! What did you find?”

  “Your story.” She paused and touched the letter and finally added, “And a long farewell letter to me. And that maybe Metcalf was right all along.”

  “To you? He knew this was going to happen? What do you mean about Metcalf?”

  “That maybe I’m responsible for all this. Hewitt got the idea of looking into the history of the Mormons from me. He knew about Uncle Walt, what I did. Said it inspired him to seek justice—or revenge—for a crime that happened a long time ago. It’s all in the letter.”

  “Hey, you know you’re not responsible for whatever Hewitt’s done.” Trammell reached out to touch her but she pulled away.

  “Yeah, I know that. But, at the moment, it doesn’t make me feel a whole lot better with, what, how many people dead? Is Hewitt one of them? It would seem so from his letter. ‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.’ He knew he was traveling an increasingly dangerous road. And that I set him on it.”

  “You no more set him on it than I did because I was willing to publish the story. It’s not my fault. It’s not your fault.”

  “I fucking know that.” She blinked and blinked, desperate to hold back more tears. She failed and they came in a flood, a small sob. This time when Trammell reached out, she let herself be drawn in, burying her face in his shoulder, letting his arms pull her tight. “I couldn’t protect him anymore than I could protect Rachel.”

  “It’s not your job to protect everyone.”

  “Oh, shut up. This isn’t about reason. Just hold me for a minute.”

  For a minute, and then a second, and a third, she took comfort in his strength, in his silence. He would have remained there as long as she needed him. Then she rubbed her eyes against his shoulder and extracted herself from his embrace.

  “Seems he expected me to make it here,” she said.

  “Anything you want to share?”

  “Basically, your working theory is correct. He was researching the Death Angels. He asked me to give you the story. I’m sure you’ve got enough now for that Pulitzer.”

  He reached out to her. “Hey, you know that’s not why I’m here.”

  “Yeah, I know.” She gave his hand a squeeze. “But it’s still true. You might as well take it.” She nodded toward the stack on the table. “I’d like the letter back when you’re done, but the rest is yours. There’s the Chappell family Bible—Hewitt was born Hewitt Wilcox Chappell—a genealogy tree, a collection of letters and three old diaries, and six of the eight Letters of Authenticity, signed by Povich and Martoni. Apparently, they were still working on the last set. No wonder they were killed. Take a look. I’m giving it all to you. Hewitt had to suspect that Povich’s death wasn’t a suicide. He couldn’t have known about Martoni.” She turned away from the papers and took down some pasta and marinara sauces from the shelf. “I can make spaghetti. I might even remember how to make bread. What do you say we stay here tonight?”

  Trammell looked at the material stacked on the table. “Sure. There’s plenty of firewood. And no shortage of food. Why not?”

  “Go look at the stuff; I know you can’t wait. I’ll take care of things here. We’ll be warm, we’ll be comfortable. We’re off the grid. It should be safe. No one but Callison knows we’re here
. Read Hewitt’s letter first. It’ll give you an idea of what he was doing.”

  While Trammell sat reading, Martha stoked the fire. Soon, they had both removed their wool hats and down jackets. Martha returned from outside carrying a kettle of snow, stomping snow off her boots on the porch. Trammell looked up from his reading and exclaimed, “4 Ebenezer Lane. It’s not an address, it’s a sick joke. This was Mary’s cabin, the fourth wife of Ebenezer Chappell. Just like there was a 2 and 3 Ebenezer Lane.” A few minutes later, he said in dismay, “Fire? He wants you to torch the cabin?”

  “Do you blame him?” Martha glanced up briefly from lighting the oven.

  Soon she was up to her elbows in flour and yeast and water, trying to remember the right combination from the Saturdays when Gran made bread for the week. Mostly, Martha’s job had been to knead the combination of ingredients, which she now did, pounding it with an unnecessary vigor and rocking with the rhythm of it and all the questions going through her head. Why hadn’t Hewitt informed her of what he was up to? Why hadn’t he come to her for help? Why all the clues? Why not just tell her outright? She could have helped him; at the least, she could’ve protected him. That’s what family is for. Her hard-won self-reliance railed against the idea that he thought it was she who needed protection. That’s why he hid the truth. With the bread rising in the warmth of the cabin, Martha heated up some soup and opened a packet of freeze-dried apples and a box of crackers. She cleared a space on the table and sat down beside Trammell.

  “Spaghetti’s for dinner,” she said. “This is just a little something to knock the edge off.”

  “‘Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.’”

  “Let me guess. Shakespeare?”

  Trammell didn’t need to answer. He picked up his spoon. Stubble had grown across his cheeks and neck over the past couple of days, a shadow that did nothing to lessen the contentment on his face. “A bowl of canned soup to a starving man in the wilderness is a veritable feast. And I mean that literally—we’re certainly in the wilderness out here, I’m starving, and this is a feast.” Trammell paused, before adding, “He loved you very much.”

  “Yeah, well, he had a funny way of showing it.”

  “Maybe he was trying to protect you. He clearly understood it was getting dangerous.”

  “What he needed was someone to protect him.” She couldn’t let go of the anger—of the sense that had she helped him, he might be here with them, finishing off the canned soup.

  “At eighty-seven or ninety-two or whatever Hewitt was, do you really think that? Isn’t that when you go out of your way to not put the people you love at risk?”

  The afternoon continued to cloud over, and soon it began to snow, soft lazy flakes, swirling in slow motion. Martha sat for a time on the front porch and watched, her hands buried in the warm pockets of her down jacket. It was a Hollywood version of a snowstorm, not the driving blizzards she had known as a young girl in the UP, when whiteouts and blowing drifts made moving about perilous for the inexperienced and experienced alike. Fresh snow started to fill in their tracks up to the cabin, like a blanket of peace. Yet Martha knew how quickly that could change.

  Like life, she supposed. For the first time in days, she wondered if she had a job to return to at CH&N. Corporate Darth Vader, Hewitt used to call her. What did it matter now? Or the Death Angels, for that matter. She wished Trammell well in pursuing Hewitt’s Death Angel story, but she didn’t really care anymore if it was published. And with it the danger. Hewitt was gone. Drifting at sea or alive and hiding. Either way, it was just one more hole in a heart full of holes.

  Was it a heart that Trammell could help mend? For the first time in years, she was intrigued by the possibility, afraid of being vulnerable, knowing that she must be. The depth of Trammell’s eyes and his often sad face captured her imagination as much as they held her in reality. Having driven herself to succeed, she appreciated his intellect and his drive to make the Ballard Gazette one of the forerunners of alternative weeklies. The sensation of his gentle touch left her shivering.

  As did the touch of a breeze against her exposed skin. The weather was still changing. Snow drifted down from one of the Ponderosa pines that surrounded the cabin. She stood up, her feet a-swim in Hewitt’s oversized sheepskin slippers. Maybe there was a real storm coming yet.

  Stripped down to a T-shirt, Martha nested on the sofa in front of the fireplace with Zane Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage, skimming more than reading. Trammell continued to work by lantern light at the small table, occasionally looking her way and voicing his appreciation of Hewitt’s research or the well-documented thread of his work.

  The blue enamel coffeepot, now full of water, hung over the fire; her bare feet warmed near the red-hot embers. Zane Grey had no more use for the Mormons than Hewitt had. Maybe that explained the collection of first editions shelved here in Mormon country instead of in Seattle. Hewitt must have wanted reminders of his hatred every time he came to this lonely stretch of southern Utah.

  Could she burn the books? Commit the cabin to fire, as he requested? Yes, she decided, yes, she could.

  The spaghetti was tolerable; the bread was awful. She had used too little yeast or it had gone too long past its expiration date, and she had baked it too long. But Trammell scraped off the outer layer of charcoal and devoured the hardtack with the enthusiasm of the starving.

  The meal finished, Trammell said, “Let me do the dishes.”

  “Let’s leave them,” Martha said. “I’m just going to burn them all tomorrow.”

  “You’re going to do it?”

  She pushed her plate away and shrugged. “It’s what Hewitt wanted. And what am I going to do with an old cabin in southern Utah? It’s not like Hewitt’s coming back, and I have no interest in returning. Not with its sad history. Besides, I like running water and a bathroom with a flush toilet, thank you very much. We found what we were searching for. We can carry it out easily enough. We know the why and the what, we just don’t know the who. That’s up to Callison and his team to find out. There’s nothing here I can’t live without. If burning the cabin is the dying wish of an old friend, I can do it.”

  “You think Hewitt’s dead?”

  “He’s either dead or wanting us to think he’s dead. I can give him that peace.”

  “But if he’s not, he could come out of hiding if we make these papers public.”

  “That will be his choice. But if you publish this, he has no reason to return here.”

  But Martha did wash the dishes.

  Trammell stretched his long frame out on the sagging sofa, his stocking feet sticking out over one end. He flipped through only a few pages of a Zane Grey before he was snoring, softly at first, then with the regular deep-throated rumble of someone hard asleep. She was content to let him sleep, watching him, listening to him.

  The fire had burned low, the coffeepot steamed on the embers. Outside, the wind howled around the eaves. Inside, the quiet of the cabin was disturbed only by an occasional crackle from the fireplace or a long snore from Trammell. She slid into Hewitt’s oversized slippers and stepped out onto the porch. Her breath blew away. Driven snow stung her face and she hugged herself. Nothing was visible past the first few feet of the porch. She loved a good old-fashioned winter storm.

  Maybe they wouldn’t be leaving tomorrow.

  Wrapping a towel around the handle, she carried the kettle of hot water toward the kitchen when she again caught her foot on the Indian rug, this time nearly falling headfirst into the sleeping Trammell. Catching herself, she quickly brought the pot back to balance without spilling any water.

  She added another log to the fire. Mixing boiling water and snow to fill a basin, she stripped naked and knelt beside the fire as if in prayer. The light of the fire turned her skin a honey yellow. Her dark curls were tinted with gold. The first touch of a hot, wet washcloth against her skin was as profound as a lover’s caress. It prompted an audible sigh. Slowly, she began to give hers
elf a bath.

  “Fresh strawberries, the Musée d’Orsay, and Raymond Chandler novels.”

  Martha startled. Trammell’s eyes sparkled in the firelight. She didn’t know how long he had been watching. The thought of this man taking quiet pleasure from watching her bathe pleased her. “What’s that?”

  “You looked so sad. It was just a reminder of some of the joys in life.”

  She smiled. “Thank you.”

  He struggled against the sagging sofa until he sat upright. “Would you like some help?”

  “A woman doesn’t take a bath in front of a man if she doesn’t want him to help.”

  “There is much I need to learn,” Trammell said, bowing his head and taking the washcloth from her. “I must ask for your patience until I complete my education.”

  She nodded, bowing like a master to a student.

  THIRTY

  Martha stood at the cabin window. After six o’clock and still no hint of dawn. Snow continued to fall in thick flurries, driven by gale winds. Tracks leading to the cabin were long gone. A foot or more of snow had drifted onto the porch deck. They wouldn’t be going anywhere today.

  She pulled Trammell’s turtleneck up over her face against the cold. It had been the first thing she could find to put on in the dark. It smelled of him and wood smoke. No, being snowed in wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. She pictured him buried deep in the cocoon of the hand-made quilt. How the man could sleep—in the car, on the sofa, all night without so much as turning. If she got three solid hours with another three of tossing and turning, she considered it a restful night.