Squid Corners

by Ed Helenski

  There is a sweetness in your soul

  And a bitter pill as well

  For though you will emerge quite whole

  Your tale will be harsh to tell.

  But seek the truth, and the joy

  That is your just and due

  For you are my beloved boy

  And always will I love you.

  Sweet Thomas.”

  She finished and through my own tears I saw droplets running down her cheeks. She wrapped her arms about me and held me close while the sobs wracked my body. I had never really said goodbye to my mother, not till now. When I quieted, she stroked my hair and said, “Maybe you should keep this book. It was meant for you.”

  I looked at her, saw nothing in her eyes but love, and shook my head. “It was meant for you, or I wouldn’t have given it to you. And besides, what is yours is mine, and mine is yours, forever, right?” She nodded. It was one of those moments where every detail is burned into your brain forever. From the angle of light coming through the window to the pattern on the bedspread I will always have that moment. I was filled with joy and sorrow in equal measures.

  “I’m not the only perceptive woman to be in your life. Seems your mother knew a great deal about what would become of her Sweet Thomas.” She sat with me in silence for a long while. Eventually we heard the movie ending downstairs, and went to join the family. It was time for cold turkey sandwiches and pie. Traditions must be kept, after all.

  That night, we lay in bed talking quietly and waiting. Once the house became quiet, and we were sure everyone was asleep, we snuck back downstairs. The lights on the tree winked and sparkled, and the room was bathed in a dim but warm light. Mags went to the boom box and put in a CD, turning the volume down very low. I heard a voice begin to sing, and it took me a long while to place it. Don McLean was singing “And I love you so”. Hard to believe that ever made it to CD.

  We sank down on the floor together in front of the tree. The carpet was soft, and Mags grabbed a pillow from the sofa and put it under her head. Then she pulled me down to her and kissed me. The song was sweet, her lips sweeter, and time passed in a blur, our bodies warm to each other, our mouths locked in an embrace. A person could get used to this whole kissing thing.

  We paused, and I looked down on her while the music played on, now “I love how you Love me” by Jimmy Crawford. I realized this was a compiled CD, and that Mags had planned this moment with some care. The lights from the tree sparkled in the stones on her finger, but the sparkle in her eyes was the one I couldn’t stop looking at. She was just so beautiful, and on that night I never saw her more lovely. We were one, now and forever. It was a wonderful feeling, though one that would be put to the test very soon.

  I found Mags looking at me with the same intensity I was looking at her, and suddenly she rolled over, toppling me to my back. She straddled me, and in less time than I would have thought possible, I was inside her. She slowly moved over me, looking down at me, and though my eyes kept closing of their own accord, every time I opened them she was looking at me, into me. Eventually passion gained the upper hand, and both our eyes closed as our movements grew more rapid. And when I released inside her, I opened my eyes again, and found her face inches from mine. We kissed as the waves washed through us. Merry Christmas.

  The next morning we all enjoyed a huge breakfast courtesy of Kat and Mags. Eggs, bacon, ham, sausage, French toast, bran muffins, orange juice, and mush, which I had never encountered before, but seemed to be essentially polenta, fried and served with syrup. Tim and Kat began packing up all the girls’ things after we ate, and I was surprised to find myself saddened that the family was breaking up. There had been a magical circle created, a safe harbor, and now I could feel the magic draining away, the dangers returning. I recall thinking that I was starting to be like Vera Carrone.

  We left at the same time as Kat and Tim, and it struck me as sad that Dan was being left there all alone. As he waved from the front porch he looked smaller and older than he had earlier. It was no doubt just my frame of mind, but it felt as if in some way, this goodbye was forever.

  As we drove back towards The Corners we talked about wedding plans. Mags wanted to get married in Apollo, and that suited me just fine. The couple of people I would invite would have to travel in any case. She told me she wanted Kat as her maid of honor.

  “Who will be your best man?” she asked me.

  It occurred to me that I would have to ponder that one. “Larry Foxe I guess.” I told her, “or maybe Reggie Pickett”. Reggie Pickett? Now why would I think that? It would end up being Larry, though the choice ended up being a default.

  “Larry seems nice enough,” she said to me, almost thinking to herself.

  “Yeah, he’s a good guy. What makes you think he seems nice enough anyway? You have never met.”

  For a moment she looked flustered, then she was smiling. “Just all you have told me about him.” But the smile didn’t exactly ring true, and I would later learn it was the first lie Mags ever told me.

  The miles went by, and my heart grew a little heavier with each one. There was something waiting back at The Corners. Conversation wilted, then failed as we got close to town. We got back to my house in the evening, and unpacked the car. Mags would stay here tonight, and tomorrow she would spend one last night at her place, saying goodbye to the single life, as she put it. I decided I better take advantage of the night I had with her, and the world saw nothing of us until the next day.

  Chapter 19

  The cloud that gathered over us as we drove home hadn’t lifted in the morning. After lingering over breakfast Mags told me to get out and about for a couple hours. She didn’t have to go to school until after the New Year, and she wanted to do some “cleaning and redecorating” of my place. Our place. I took that to mean she was going to get rid of the things that bugged her, and she didn’t want me around to argue over them. I left.

  I stopped by the municipal building, but Reggie was out. I looked for him a couple more times that Tuesday, but it was to no avail. If I had found him things might have turned out differently, I might have gotten him to tell me what he was up to. I might have been able to help. But that’s not how things worked out. It was cold as all get out, with a fresh crust of snow on the ground, so just walking around the town didn’t really appeal. The forecast was for a real blizzard in the next couple days. But when I thought about where I could go, it occurred to me I didn’t have much of a welcome anywhere any longer. So that was how I found myself in my car heading out to Dewey’s on the afternoon of Tuesday, 26 December.

  Despite it being early, and the day after Christmas, there were several people in the bar. Besides Dewey, there were two young guys, perhaps 25, shooting a game of pool in the rear, each sucking on a Bud longneck. At the bar was a middle aged guy in a horrible green sports coat talking earnestly with Shawnte. I realized with a chuckle that it was Bert Barker. I wondered what Barbara would say about this. And to their right was Chuck Peters, late of Wyscome’s service station. I took a seat at the far end, nearest Chuck. When Dewey came over I asked for a coffee.

  The place had the sour stink of beer, cigarettes, and urine. It struck me that the smell annoyed me today in a way it never had before. It was a single man’s smell, and I was no longer, strictly speaking, a single man. In fact, I felt more married now than I ever had in my brief time wed to Jana.

  Dewey brought the coffee and some sugar and creamer packets. It had an oily film on the top, and had apparently been brewing all day. I was tempted to ask for fresh, but would no doubt be rebuked. This was, after all, a bar, if I wanted something fresh I could have a draft. I put one of the creamers into the cup, turning the oily mess gray. I hate powdered creamer, and consider one of the worst aspects of the modern age the loss of good old-fashioned cream for coffee. I could recall as a child, when milk still came in a glass bottle with a cardboard stopper or a foil cap, my Mom carefully pouring off the plug of cream at the top, to use in her coffee.
Sometimes she would let me taste the cream, so rich and thick.

  I took a sip and decided I would do without the coffee. I pondered getting a bite, but, considering the difficulty Dewey had brewing coffee, decided that would be unwise. I would dally long enough to warm up, and then head back home. I thought I would strike up a conversation with Chuck while I waited, see if he was leaving town or not. “Dewey, let me buy Chuck here a beer”. Dewey nodded and drew a draft to put down in front of Chuck.

  Chuck turned to me and said “Thanks. Planning to pump me for a story are you?” His thank you, and the look on his face, were not at all pleasant.

  “No,” I said, “My story days are over. The paper is folded.”

  “Good.” He said with a sneer. “Nothing but trouble, anyway. So why you talking to me now, just satisfying your own curiosity? I already told your butt buddy everything.”

  Now what had set him off? And who was it that was supposed to be my butt buddy? “I have no idea what you are talking about. Just wondered if you were staying on in The Corners or not now that Wyscome is gone”.

  Chuck slammed his fist on the bar, drawing a frown from Dewey. My nose ached a little in memory of the last punch I had taken. “I’m leaving. All right? You happy? It’s what I told Pickett and I’m sure it’s what he told you. I got the clap from that girl. I didn’t do nothing to her that she didn’t want. She was always asking for it, swinging it around like she was in heat. So what? That make me a killer? I don’t think so. So why don’t you just get the fuck out of my face?” He stood and faced me, his hands clenched in fists. I backed away slowly, palms outward, and left Dewey's. I have not been back.

  Once outside and in my car my heart rate slowed down. Several things were apparent then, and became clearer when I finally did find out what Reggie had been up to. First off, Chuck was apparently one of the folks who had gotten Chlamydia, and admittedly from Sioban. Second, Reggie had already talked to him, and either didn’t think he was a suspect, or was giving him rope in the hope he would hang himself. As it turned out, the former was true. I don’t know what made Reggie sure Chuck wasn’t our man, but I tended to agree, he was violent and a womanizer, but what you saw was what you got. The one thing Chuck didn’t have was a secret.

  I drove back into town, and went to my house. As suspected, Mags had been rearranging things to suit our new status. The living room had been shifted about, and two old end tables that had been in the house when I moved were no longer in evidence. There were several pieces of artwork on the previously empty walls, a dried flower thing in a frame, and a small watercolor of an iris. They looked strangely out of place on the somewhat dingy walls. It was clear that my place needed a lot more than a little change. It needed to be painted and remodeled, and I wondered if it was worth doing to a place here in The Corners.

  Mags came out of the kitchen with two bowls of tomato soup and two grilled Swiss sandwiches, cut on the diagonals. It reminded me of lunches at home. I loved this woman. We sat on the floor in front of the coffee table and she talked about what she planned to do with the bedroom this afternoon. I told her what I would like to do with the bedroom this afternoon, and though my idea was tempting, I suspected hers would be the one implemented. Though there was no reason we couldn’t do both.

  The end result was we moved things around in the bedroom first. She let me keep the bed I had, since it was a queen, and hers was only a full, but the dressers and vanity from her house ended up in there and mine were sent to the guest room. Once the place had been scrubbed from top to bottom and the new items settled in their resting places, I dragged Mags into the shower, where we started what would eventually end up in my bed. Our bed.

  Later, as the snow began falling outside again, we lay together, warm, sated, happy. I told her about my encounter with Chuck Peters, and brought her up to date on all the things that had happened with Reggie and I regarding the missing girls. Mags, like me, still believed there was someone out there, someone who needed to be found.

  “I can’t bear the thought that another girl might end up, well, like Sioban. We have to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  I was laying behind her, with my arms wrapped around her, and my lips near her ear. My voice was low as I said “I don’t really know what else we can do. Reggie has all the information there is right now. And I really don’t think the state police are going to do anything else. As far as they are concerned there IS no case.” I sighed and snuggled closer. “If there had been other girls found, if bodies had turned up, maybe that would make a difference. As it stands there is just a list of girls who went missing and didn’t turn up. And there are thousands and thousands of those all over the country.”

  It was Maggie’s turn to sigh. “I know. It just seems like we could do something. Otherwise this guy may just dry up and blow away, like the town seems to be doing, and take root somewhere else. Do you think it’s someone old?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied, wishing she were right and there was something we could do. “If Elmer was right about when this all started then he would have to be at least my age I would think. Well, thirty anyway. I guess. We just don’t have anything to go on.”

  “Maybe we need one of those FBI profilers to look at these cases.” She turned around to face me, and I could see how heavily this weighed on her.

  “Except there is nothing to profile. Profilers look for a signature in an unknown suspects M.O. We don’t have an M.O. because we have no proof there were even any crimes, let alone any crime scenes. Sioban is really the only case with any evidence, and damn little of that. And the police have closed that case. The FBI isn’t going to get involved on the basis of a washed up reporter’s hunch.” Or the word of some bumpkin constable, I thought, but didn’t add.

  Maggie’s fingers reached down under the covers and encircled me. “Hmm, you feel a long ways from washed up, buddy.” And with that began another round of lovemaking, communication, but no words. It was nearly dark when we finally re-emerged from the shower and went back downstairs. It seemed Maggie took refuge in our lovemaking. It brought us to a place where we could forget, at least briefly.

  We ate a quiet dinner, some pasta and shrimp, and then I walked Maggie back to her house for her last night of single living. I tried to convince her to stay the night with me, but she told me “There are things I want to do, and the last of the packing to attend to, and besides, think of tomorrow night’s reunion.” We kissed on her steps until we were frozen, and then, parrying my wishes to come inside, she left, and I stood outside in the swirling snow, dreaming for a few minutes of just how warm our reunion would be. There would be no reunion tomorrow night, but I had no way of knowing that. I walked back to my house whistling And I Love Her So.

  When I got into my house, the message light was flashing on my phone. “Couldn’t bear to be apart,” I said, thinking it was Mags. It wasn’t.

  I didn’t recognize the voice on the machine right away, but once she identified herself it clicked into place. Cindy Borougham. Sounding very upset. “Tom. Tom are you there? It’s Cynthia. From the clerk’s office. It’s…I can’t find Reggie. I can’t find hardly anyone. I called the State Police, but they said there’s no sense doing anything till daylight. Oh, jeez, I need to do something. It’s Meg Dunway. She didn’t come home tonight. Janet and Josh are frantic. They thought maybe you…” The machine clicked off at that point. I called her back at the office.

  After several busy signals I finally got through. “Cindy. It’s Tom Tharon. What’s going on?”

  “Oh, good. I’ve been calling everyone I can find, which isn’t very many people. Has the whole town left? Anyway, it’s Meg Dunway. She’s missing. And I can’t find Reggie. I haven’t seen him since this morning. Janet thought maybe you had heard from Meg. She says Meg thinks a lot of you.”

  “No” I said, my stomach curdled with the news, “I haven’t seen Meg since before Christmas. What can we do?”

  “Well, the State boys won’t do anythin
g now, a search won’t do any good in the dark with this storm, they said they will send a unit in the morning, and that she would no doubt turn up before that. I’m getting everyone I can find down here so we can at least search around town. Can you come?”

  “Yeah” I said, realizing I still had my coat and gloves on, “I’ll be right there”. I hung up and went back out the door. I paused for a second on the porch, debating whether or not I should call Maggie, but decided that the last place I wanted her to be was out in the snow looking for a lost girl. Little did I know it would have been the safest place for her.

  Cindy was outside with a small group when I got there. Erin Scully was with her, arm protectively over Cindy’s shoulder. I guess the stories were true. There was Mac Taylor, Tommy Slicdale, and Juan Carrone. Cindy said Janet was home with the other kids, but that Josh had been out for hours now, looking. That was it. No one else was reachable, or was answering the phone. There were some other lights in town, but there was no point in trying to get their help. I was briefly reminded of Eustice’s tale of the Jones family. In this town, people had a habit of hiding their heads when things got really bad.

  It was Erin Scully who took charge. She sent Mac to comb the area up towards Burdock and along 6016. Juan would take the rest of town. Tommy Slicdale would head out Industry Road. I would take the area where Sioban had been found. I wasn’t happy about going there alone, but there didn’t seem to be much choice. I would stop back at my house and get a flashlight. Erin and Cindy would drive along 144 and see if there was any sign of her. We planned to meet back at the municipal building in three hours.

  As we broke up Juan sidled up to me and said in a low voice “You should have kept the charm, like the lady did. You will be sorry” And with that he was gone, leaving me to wonder what he was talking about. I hurried back to my house and emerged with the flashlight. I headed out Cleveland.

  Once I had combed the road as far as the Barker place I had to turn back towards town, the snow so thick I was afraid of getting lost myself. I tried walking off into the woods to the east. The woods where Sioban had been. I prayed constantly that I would find nothing. And this one time, my prayers were answered. If I had know what was waiting for me back in town I would have prayed for something else.