Valley of Shadows

by Steven Cooper

  “But all you have for now,” Preston says, “is a metaphor.”

  “A metaphor and a reporter,” Mills retorts.

  They look at him blankly, mystified, successfully thrown.

  “I’ve had a reporter approach me with what she claims are big problems in the church,” he tells them.

  “Since when do you hang around with reporters?” Powell asks him.

  Mills folds his arms across his chest and says, “We all know the church is controversial. Viveca Canning has strong ties to the church. So we really need to look there. Apparently this reporter already has.”

  “But you all went,” Myers says.

  “Yeah. We went. We saw. It’s over the top,” Mills recites. “The people look like they’re drugged. We heard from those people on the board, which only reinforced an air of secrecy around the church.”

  “An air of creepiness,” Powell adds.

  “Look, it’s not my kind of religion,” Mills says. “But I’d like to talk to some ex-members.”

  “If you can find them,” Preston says.

  “We’ll start with what we’ve got,” Mills tells them. “We already found one. Jillian Canning. Bennett may be in, but Jillian is out. I’m going to head out now to sweet, old Aunt Phoebe’s. Anybody wanna come?”

  Myers ducks his head as if his disinterest won’t be noted. Preston says he’s busy with the warrants.

  “Unless there’s another crime scene to process, I’m good to go.”

  It’s Powell.

  Myers laughs.

  “What?” Powell asks him.

  “Oh, nothing,” he says.

  “No. Tell me.”

  “I’m just guessing she’s hot. That’s all. You seem so eager.”

  Powell gives him a lethal snicker and a tsk, and says, “Exactly. That’s exactly why I want to go. I want to go see that hot lesbian and grab her by the pussy.”

  Preston sprays his coffee everywhere.

  Myers praises Jesus.

  Mills says, “Come on, enough, guys,” rolling his eyes, shaking his head, getting up from the desk. He opens his office door so the motley crew will exit.

  Belinda Garcia needs an MRI of her knees. She’s forty-seven, allergic to Penicillin and peanuts, takes a multivitamin daily along with Lexapro (20 mgs), Lyrica (150 mgs x 2), Tramadol (she can’t remember the dosage), Diclofenac (50 mgs), and Ativan (as needed). “The goal,” she says, “is to have the surgery if I need the surgery, and get off some of these drugs.” She tells Gus she’d been a runner since high school, that she’d finished marathons all over the country, often running twenty miles a day in training until her knees began to wear out, gradually abbreviating the distances she could run. “Until I couldn’t run at all.” Gus feels a knock in his chest and knows it’s her sorrow. These days he’d be called an “empath.” And he’d wear the badge proudly. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll have the surgery and some great physical therapy and be back to your old self.”

  “I doubt it,” she says. “The operative word is ‘old.’”

  Her voice is husky and laden with regret. She medicates her regret with Scotch whiskey. It’s just a hunch. Gus smiles and helps her onto the sliding platform. She looks up at him, at his name tag, and says, “Oh, your name is Gus. I guess I wasn’t paying attention when you introduced yourself.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “Gus is my son’s name.”

  “What’s it short for?”

  “Gustavo,” she replies. “My husband’s Cuban. It was his greatgrandfather’s name. What about you?”

  “August. I don’t know where it came from. But no one has ever called me August in my life. Not my family, not my friends, nobody. I’ve thought of having it changed to just Gus, but never bothered.” “Do you mind if I call you August? It’s a beautiful name.”

  He smiles again at the husky-voiced woman, a voice that’s reminiscent of Billie’s but less decorous, not as golden. “I’m going to need you to lie still,” he tells her. “The whole procedure should take between twenty and twenty-five minutes. There’s a built-in microphone, so if you need to talk to me or you need me to stop, just speak up.”

  She assures him she’ll be fine and he slides her in. Five minutes or so into the exam, however, Gus hears a voice coming from the speaker on the console. “Are you okay, Mrs. Garcia?” he asks.

  The woman answers, but Gus can’t make out what she’s saying through the static. This is nothing new. The system is erratic. The connection often sounds like it’s coming from the far end of a tunnel, filtered through sandpaper, three times removed. “Mrs. Garcia, can you repeat that? I’m sorry. I’m having a little trouble with the audio.”

  Through the speaker he hears a deep breath, then a cry. Then a whisper. “They know where I live,” she says. “They know what I drive.” He does a double take. He feels the blood rush from his face. He dashes from the booth to the patient’s side. “Mrs. Garcia? Should I stop the test? Are you all right?”

  The machine is knocking and whining and chirping, but he can hear her muffled response when she says, “I’m fine, August. I’m fine.”

  He looks at her through the machine. He looks at the booth. He turns again to her. Then he eyes the whole room suspiciously. It’s in the air. An energy. He can’t shake it. Gus returns to the booth. The exam continues.

  “I think they’ve been here.”

  The speaker again.

  “Mrs. Garcia?”

  “They’ve been here, Gus. They know where I live.”

  The voice is certainly not Mrs. Garcia’s. There’s no huskiness. Where her voice is deep and resonant, this voice is lithe. It’s coming through the speaker. Someone is talking to Gus, but it’s not Belinda Garcia.

  “Please help me, Gus. Please help me. Tell me what you see.”

  And then it hits him. Tell me what you see. Finally, he recognizes the voice. It’s Aaliyah Jones. The reporter. She’s in danger. And he has to warn her.

  “I hope this isn’t a bad time,” Mills tells Jillian Canning when she greets them at the front door.

  “No. Please come in.”

  They follow Jillian to the same room where she had first met with Mills. Powell ogles the house along the way. There’s a lot to see here. The views. The craftsmanship. The art is all original, Mills guesses, like the art in Viveca’s house. “Your brother took several things from the crime scene, mostly jewels,” Mills tells the victim’s daughter.

  “Of course he did,” Jillian says.

  “Did you?” Powell asks.

  Jillian turns to her, stares her down and says, emphatically, “No.”

  Mills intervenes. “Besides her artwork and jewels, is there anything else in the house your mother treasured?”

  “Her books. She absolutely treasured them. You saw her library?” “So she actually read those books?”

  Jillian gives him a puzzled look. “Yes, she did. Voraciously, as I remember. She loved the classics.”

  “I love the classics,” Mills tells her.

  “Well, the two of you could have had a very nice book club.” Jillian smiles, her face as optimistic as a sunflower. There’s something bright and ingratiating about her, even in her grief.

  “May I borrow one of them?” he asks her.

  “In lieu of going to the public library, Detective?”

  Mills laughs. “No. I’ll be honest with you. One of my closest friends is a psychic. I understand if you want to roll your eyes. Please feel free, but I would like him to study something of hers. I know this sounds unconventional, but it can’t hurt . . .”

  She sits up, her face beaming. “No, no. I love it,” she gushes. “Grab a book. Grab two.”

  “You’d have to get them for us.”

  “No problem.”

  “And we’d need to keep this off the record,” he tells her.

  She shrugs. “No problem with that either, I suppose.”

  Powell leans forward as if she’s ready to pounce. “You left the church
,” she says.

  “Is that a question?” the woman asks.

  “Let me try again,” Powell says, her voice serrated. “Did you leave the church?”

  “The church left me,” Jillian replies. “The lesbian thing didn’t work for them.”

  “When I was here last time you said your mother couldn’t completely ‘erase’ you,” Mills reminds her. “Was she conflicted about that?” “At first, yes, of course,” Jillian says, her face kind of disappearing into a memory. “She was so torn. But less so after my dad died. I think he was the one standing between us because, to him, the church rules were black and white. But after he died, my mom and I got closer. I think I told you that last time.”

  “You did,” Mills says.

  “But even though we were getting closer, I knew something was bothering her. I asked her all the time, ‘Is it me? Is it me?’ But she assured me it wasn’t. She said she was just distracted and I left it at that, you know, figuring she was probably overwhelmed by the estate. All the responsibilities fell on her when my dad died.”

  “What about Bennett?”

  She laughs. “You’ve met my brother. He thinks of himself as the valley playboy. It’s kind of pathetic, but he wouldn’t know responsibility if it hit him in the face.”

  “Yet he put on quite a show at the church,” Powell says. “We were at the memorial.”

  Jillian nods soberly, says nothing. The air conditioning whirs to life again and whispers through some unseen vents. It’s so freaking hot outside, the system barely shuts off for two minutes. The maid reappears, offering iced tea, lemonade, and bottled water. Both Mills and Powell accept a bottle. Jillian instructs the woman to leave her a glass of iced tea on the coffee table, then thanks her. The maid drifts out of the room, but her departure fails to prompt a peep out of Jillian. Mills guzzles the water. Powell sips less enthusiastically. When the maid is safely out of earshot, Mills leans forward and says, “We think your mother may have changed her will. Were you aware of that?”

  Jillian tucks her hands under her thighs and rocks gently. She conveys nothing on her face. “Changed from what to what?”

  “I don’t know whether or not you were aware that your mother left mostly everything to the church,” Mills says. “But we found a revised will that bequeathed the entire estate to you and your brother.”

  “Okay . . . I didn’t know that,” she says. “Have you confirmed with her lawyers?”

  “We’re working on that,” Mills tells her.

  “Is that all you have to say?” Powell asks her. “You just find out you’re going to inherit a fortune and you don’t even blink an eye.”

  Jillian crosses a leg, clenches her hands together around one knee. All business. “It doesn’t matter to me. I’ve made a life for myself.”

  Powell shakes her head. “Are you kidding me? Hundreds of millions of dollars don’t matter to you? Certainly you don’t live in a convent, ma’am.”

  “No, I don’t, ma’am. Nor have I taken a vow of poverty,” Jillian snaps. “But I don’t want their money. I absolutely do not want their money.”

  Mills extends his arms between them like an umpire. “All right, ladies. Let’s bring it down a notch. I think the only reason that Jan is pressing you is because this news could completely change the motive . . .”

  “Meaning what?” Jillian asks.

  “Meaning this presents certain people who directly stood to gain from your mother’s death,” Powell says evenly.

  “Meaning my brother and me,” the woman says.

  “We have to cover everything,” Mills reminds her. “I know you understand this.”

  Jillian shakes her head and brings one hand to her face, wipes a tear that inches down her cheek. Another tear falls to her chin, and it hangs there deciding on the weight of grief; Mills looks right through it, imagines something in the tiny orb shining back at him, flecks of gold, faerie dust, a talisman. And then the tear lets go and drops to the floor.

  “I’m sorry, Jillian,” Mills says.

  “It’s okay,” she says, staring past him. “You know I was home in California when my mother was killed. You can check and doublecheck. But if you have more questions about me as a suspect, you can talk to our lawyers. I shouldn’t be answering those kinds of questions alone. That much I know.”

  Mills nods. “Of course.”

  “What about your brother?” Powell asks. “Do you thinking he’s capable of murdering your mother?”

  Jillian catches her breath. Mills shoots a look of caution at his colleague.

  “We’re just trying to eliminate suspects,” Powell adds. “You understand that, right?”

  “I can’t answer for my brother,” the woman says. “After I left the church I was never around to witness how he interacted with my parents. But that’s enough. Okay? Any more questions about my family need to go through the lawyers.”

  Powell starts to speak, but Mills puts his hand up. Whatever he’s orchestrated here has gone off the rails. The room needs a little less percussion and a little more violin. “Okay, we completely understand,” he says, as gently as he can muster. “We’re done talking about the will and the family. But can we talk about the church itself, Jillian?”

  “Why?” she asks.

  “As an ex-member, can you tell us how the church treated dissenters?”

  She reaches for the glass of iced tea, takes a sip. “What does that have to do with my mother’s death? She never dissented.”

  “But she started having doubts about erasing you,” Mills says. “Correct?”

  “She kept her doubts private.”

  “What about others?” Powell asks her.

  “I don’t know what to say. I’ve only heard the rumors and they’re not good.”

  “Rumors about a prison camp?” Powell asks. “Child abuse?” “Look, I really can’t,” the woman pleads.

  “Can’t or won’t?” Powell persists.

  Jillian Canning puts her face in her hands and through muffling sobs says, “Just tell me what this has to do with my mother.”

  “Maybe she witnessed something she shouldn’t have seen,” Mills suggests.

  “Maybe,” the woman concedes. “But the real awful stuff is kept far away from the big donors. The big money never knows.”

  “So there are secrets,” Mills says to her.

  She pulls her head up, brushes her tear-stained face, and with a deep exhale says, “The whole fucking place is a secret. It looks like a behemoth church. It looks like a giant cathedral all about religion. At least from the outside. But it’s a crazy cult. This can’t be a surprise to you. It’s been rumored in the valley for years. I don’t want to say any more.”

  “Why?” Powell asks.

  She says nothing. Mills yields to the silence for a moment. He and Powell have already pounced. A good detective knows when to pounce, when to pause. So much can happen in the pause. A witness’s regrets emerge, anger flourishes, old wounds reopen. For Mills, this pause, unlike most, is a vulnerable place for him personally, a place where he’s easily distracted by the tumors of life. Namely Kelly’s. He can’t fathom how she could have gone from healthy to not healthy without warning. Neither one of them could have anticipated the tumor. Apparently, neither one of them has a say in the matter. That’s what impotence feels like. How the fuck is he supposed to fight an adversary like cancer? Interrogate it? Follow it? Catch it in the act? Jesus.

  “You’re scared,” he says to Jillian Canning.

  “I know they know I’m here. I’m sure Bennett told them,” she says. “They have to know I’d come home to bury my mom, especially since I missed my father’s funeral.”

  “Because he erased you?” Mills asks.

  “Yes,” she replies. “But also because there wasn’t enough time. My mom had him buried before I could get home.”

  “That quickly?”

  “Immediately,” she says.

  To Mills, the connection of dots is palpable. He pushes himself for
ward in the chair and locks his eyes on Jillian’s, taking her eyes prisoner.

  “What?” she says with a nervous flutter in her voice, her eyes still captive.

  “Is there any reason your mother would want to exhume your father’s body?” Mills asks her.

  “What did you say?”

  “We found a search she did on her computer about exhuming bodies,” Mills explains.

  “I can’t fucking believe this. This is fucking nuts,” she cries, her eyes breaking free. “If you don’t mind, I just have to ask you to go now. I can’t do this.”

  “Please,” Powell says, “you said the church would know you’re here. Are you worried?”

  “No. I can handle myself. They can follow me all day and all night. But they will not touch me.”

  “Are they following you?” Mills asks.

  “I think so. Probably to be sure I’m not talking to reporters and spilling secrets.”

  “Just tell us,” Powell begs, “if you ever witnessed any form of torture in the church.”

  The woman gets up. She’s had enough. She’s telling them to get the fuck out without saying a word. So Mills rises, prompting Powell to do the same. Before they can move more than an inch, however, Jillian says, “Stop. Wait.” She unbuttons her blouse in front of the two of them. Suddenly, she’s brazen. She shimmies the blouse from her shoulders low enough to expose the top halves of her breasts, both of them skewered with deep, angry scars—a small but vivid ‘X’ on each.

  “Oh God,” Powell moans. “What the hell?”

  “I kissed a boy at church before I turned eighteen,” she replies. Then she buttons her top and says, “That’s all folks. I’m done. I’ll get that book for your psychic, Detective Mills. You’ll have it tomorrow.”

  In his stunned silence, Mills knows they’re not done. He will follow up. They will talk again. Here in the desert, in this scorching heat, under a blazing August sky, he has discovered the tip of an iceberg. It could blow the case wide open. Mills shakes his head without shaking his head all the way to the car.

  He can’t help it. He hears the sighs, but he can’t stop the sighs. He’s been taking deep breaths all through dinner. And of course Kelly asks him, “What’s wrong with you?”