Dark Channel

by Ray Garton

  She touched Joan’s arm and asked, “Is there anything I can—”

  “Excuse me.” Joan hurried into the diner and into the women’s room, where she knelt over the toilet and vomited for several minutes.

  5.

  “Come on, Coogan. You mentioned the Alliance, I heard you.”

  “What if I did?”

  “You think they might have had something to do with that?”

  “Doesn’t matter what I think. That’s up to the police.”

  “Well, if you think you know something, maybe you should tell them. Did the Alliance have something against this guy?”

  “You know, boy, you ask a lotta questions for a tourist. You ask even more for somebody who just owns a few video stores down south, which I’m having a harder time believing every minute. In fact, if you do own those stores, if they even exist, I will take my shoe off, salt my right foot and eat it, that’s how much I believe your video-store story. In fact—” He stepped forward and poked Jordan’s chest with a meaty forefinger, his eyes narrowing. “—I’m goin’ home right now to call that number on your business card and if I get a barber shop or a bowling alley or one of those goddamned phone company robots tellin’ me I’ve reached a number that’s been disconnected, you’d better be outta town by the time I leave the house or I’ll have you kicked out. We don’t mind questions, but we want ’em asked up front by people who put their cards on the table and don’t sneak around. We’ve got enough troubles in this town without people like you—whoever the hell you are—creepin’ around diggin’ up dirt. Now am I gonna have to—”

  “You don’t have to go home.” Jordan removed another business card from his pocket and handed it over, then took out his wallet, flipped it open and removed his telephone credit card. “Call from that pay phone over there and charge it to my card.”

  Frowning as if disappointed that his speech had been interrupted, Coogan adjusted his glasses and looked at the credit card, then back at Jordan.

  “I’ll do just that, by god. I don’t bluff easy.” He walked to the phone booth on the corner and slammed the door behind him.

  Jordan smiled slightly. He was a tough old guy, Coogan, and very intriguing. He clearly did not approve of the Alliance, and yet he seemed to defend it, in an indirect sort of way, by solidly refusing to talk about it in detail or ask any questions; he also seemed to be protecting it from sneaky investigative reporters. Then again, maybe he was protecting something—or someone—else.

  There were two police officers wandering around, making notes, chuckling to one another coldly as cops sometimes do to ease the blow of a bloody situation and divert their attention from the gore.

  Lauren stepped up beside Jordan and said, “I’m going inside to talk with the waitress, see if I can do anything. She seems pretty upset. Is that okay?”

  “Yeah, sure.” He didn’t look at her; he was following the streaked trail of blood on the sidewalk that led around the corner of the diner and down a narrow shadowed alley. It ended at an open garbage Dumpster against the diner’s wall where a large bag of heavy dark plastic was snagged on the Dumpster’s corner, half in and half out; the bag was empty, torn open and glistening with blood. Something small and wet at Jordan’s feet caught his eye and he hunched down to find a bloody tooth; a few inches away from it was a small but growing puddle of blood being fed by drops falling from the bottom of the Dumpster. Blood had trickled from the ripped garbage bag down the side of the Dumpster and was dripping slowly to the pavement.

  Paul Kragen had crawled from the Dumpster, where he had been left, beaten and bleeding, in the garbage bag.

  Jordan scanned the pavement around him searching for something, anything that might help answer his two biggest questions—who and why?—until a voice behind him spoke firmly and just loudly enough to startle him.

  “And what do you think you’re doing, friend?”

  Jordan spun to face one of the police officers, smiled and said, “Nothing, really. I just noticed this blood. It led back here, so …” He shrugged good-naturedly as the officer came closer, looking around with a creased brow until his eyes fell on the garbage bag.

  Wrinkling his nose, the officer moved closer to the bag, joined his hands behind his back and leaned forward to inspect it closely, as if he were sniffing it.

  “What a way to go, huh?” Jordan said, slipping his fingers into his back pocket.

  “Did you see anything?”

  “No. Just what everybody else saw. Less, really. I wasn’t sitting by the window.”

  The officer called over his shoulder, “Hey, J.B.!”

  The other cop ambled around the corner and down the alley, frowning as he made a note on his pad. They both inspected the Dumpster, muttering to one another until the first one turned to Jordan and said, “Do you mind if we ask you a few questions? Nothing much, really, just routine. I doubt anything’s gonna come of this. Probably some creeps coming through town, messed the guy up, robbed him.” He averted his eyes. “Sure as hell nobody around here who’d do that.” He twitched his shoulders, removed a notebook, smacked his lips three times and never again, through the entire exchange, met Jordan’s eyes.

  Jordan smiled and said, “Sure, I don’t mind,” knowing full well the officer was lying. …

  “Listen, honey,” Chelsea said into the telephone, standing behind the register with a fist on her hip, “I don’t care if you’ve got gangrene in both legs and a migraine headache, we need you down here now and if you don’t come, you’d better send somebody else who can waitress right away or you’re out of a job.”

  Most of the customers had gone. Two couples on opposite sides of the diner were preparing to leave. The man at the window with the newspaper and the food on his clothes. A few older men—obviously regulars—were still hunched at the coffee counter, speaking in low tones.

  Lauren watched Joan Maher lift her cup of tea, hand and lips trembling as she sipped. They’d introduced themselves and made small talk for a few minutes before Joan lapsed into a silent pause in which she seemed to forget she was not alone.

  “Would you like me to go?” Lauren asked quietly.

  Joan smiled weakly. “No, I’m sorry, I’m being rude. I appreciate your concern. Most tourists … well, they wouldn’t give a damn. I know—I deal with them almost every day. Especially during the skiing season. I think the suicide rate among waitresses skyrockets during the skiing season in Grover.”

  “You seemed upset, so I thought you could use an ear.”

  “Yeah.” She nodded. “I am upset. I’m … pissed. Paul was a good guy. We saw a lot of each other. We … well, I guess you could say we were dating, for want of a better word. That sounds so—” She laughed sadly, “—so juvenile. But we spent most of our spare time together. You know, I don’t want to talk down about the people in Grover, because they’re great, they really are. They’re big-hearted and generous and accepting and, most importantly, unpretentious. But … well, there aren’t very many people around here who share my interests. You know, literature, old movies … pornography.” She laughed again, but this time it was genuine. “But Paul was different. He loved Grover as much as I do, but—also like me—he didn’t quite fit in. And we sort of … found each other. And the thought of those people doing that to him … hurting him like that …” Tears rose in her eyes and she curled her lips into a small O and exhaled hard. “I need a cigarette,” she said, rising quickly and going to the cigarette machine by the rest rooms in back, fishing in the pocket of her apron for change.

  Those people? Lauren thought. What people? She watched Joan’s trembling hands deposit the coins and push the glowing button, and Lauren felt a chill. Out on the sidewalk, Joan had said she had no idea who might have killed her friend; but just now, she’d spoken the words those people as if she knew exactly who had murdered him, or at least had suspicions. Lauren toyed nervously with the as
htray on the table, frowning as she stared at the woman fumbling with the stubborn cigarette machine.

  Maybe Jordan’s right, she thought. Maybe we should handle this carefully. Cautiously. Maybe this is more dangerous than I thought.

  She’d tried to discount the nagging feeling that Nathan was in some kind of danger, telling herself that it was just the shrieking voice of her panic, that nothing would happen to him as long as he was in Mark’s care. But now she began to entertain the possibility that perhaps even Mark was in trouble and—although she’d wanted to claw his eyes out lately—when it came right down to it, that scared her, too.

  Joan returned to the table and Chelsea—a pear-shaped woman with a face that looked in need of a good ironing—came to them with a coffeepot.

  “Would you like some coffee, sweets?” she asked.

  “No, no.” Joan stood again and reached for the pot. “Let me do that, I’m fine, really, I’ll just—”

  “Sit yourself down and relax. Cindy’s on her way in. She’d better be, anyway—” She turned up the coffee mugs on the table and poured, “—or she’ll be livin’ off of Mommy and Daddy again as of tomorrow. It’s slowed down, anyway. Relax.”

  Joan sighed, “She’s great,” then sipped her coffee and lit a cigarette.

  “That man out there,” Lauren said, “the one who was with you—”

  “Coogan?”

  “—he said something about the Alliance. He seemed to think maybe … well, that maybe they had something to do with what happened to your friend.” Without saying any more, she cocked a questioning brow.

  Joan exhaled a burst of smoke and lowered her eyes to her coffee before sipping again, then shook her head. “Don’t know anything about it.”

  Trying to remain casual, Lauren chuckled quietly and said, “I don’t understand them. The Alliance, I mean. They’re so … big. People seem to eat that stuff up. I’ve never been a religious person of any kind. You know, Catholic, Protestant, anything like that. But at least those religions seem to make a kind of … you know, sense. At least they have a sort of history, a base. All this stuff about crystals and ancient entities … I just don’t get that. But I guess it takes all kinds, huh?” She added cream to her coffee and stirred slowly, hoping Joan would give her some kind of response.

  She didn’t.

  “What do you people think about them? I mean, the people who live around here. Do you like them being in your town? Attracting so much attention here?”

  “The local merchants don’t seem to mind. It’s good business.”

  “Yeah. I guess so. But … well, no offense, but this area has always been the center of some … you know, some pretty weird beliefs, hasn’t it? UFOs, people living in the mountain …”

  “Don’t let Chelsea hear you say that. The little folks on the walls here are Lemurians—the people who live in the mountain—and she claims to have seen and talked with them. And she’s serious, too.” She shrugged. “Yeah, it’s true, there’s some pretty loopy people up here, but for the most part, it’s a good town. And you don’t have to worry about offending me. I haven’t been here long, so it’s not like I’m devoted to the place, or anything.”

  “What brought you here from L.A.?”

  “Oh—” Another shrug, uncertain this time, “—just looking to get away from the city, I guess.”

  “Did you know someone here, or …” She let the sentence hover.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I guess you could say that. I knew someone here.”

  “Oh, I’m … I’m sorry. Your friend?”

  “No, it wasn’t Paul. I met him later. After I moved into town.”

  “Oh. You lived outside of town for a while?”

  Joan fidgeted in her seat, took two quick puffs on her cigarette and a long swallow of her cooling black coffee. “A boarding-house near Weed,” she said after a moment.

  “Ah.” Lauren didn’t want to push too hard, but she had the feeling she was onto something. She drank her coffee and looked around the diner and tried to come up with something innocuous. Finally: “What did you do in Los Angeles?”

  “I worked for an insurance company. A big one. Diamond-Barr?”

  “Oh, really? Yes, I’ve heard of it. In fact, I had a friend who—”

  “Yes, everybody does, if they don’t have it themselves. It was awful. So … big. And the people I worked with and for … god, they were vile. On top of that, I was in a marriage that was like … well, it was like the professional wrestling of marriages. And I had a little girl who … she really suffered from that marriage. So I got a divorce, and things went well for a while, until my daughter got sick. She … it turned out to be … it was a bone cancer.” Her brow wrinkled and her eyes began to glisten. She looked everywhere in the diner except at Lauren, who began to feel very uncomfortable and guilty for prying. “Too advanced to stop. After she died, I started groping for something—anything—and left the city to … well, I needed something that … see, I was raised in a very strict Catholic home and that … well, it just didn’t work for me. I mean, I don’t harbor any hard feelings toward my parents because … they, you know, meant well and felt they were doing the right thing and … they’re dead now. My brother, too. He died of cancer in eighty-nine. Then the divorce … well, that was nothing, a relief, but when my daughter died … I needed something to believe in.”

  Joan paused for a while, but Lauren said nothing. Joan was upset enough already, but something within her had apparently opened up; Lauren decided Joan needed to talk to someone or she would have remained silent, so Lauren said nothing and let her continue.

  “Catholicism hadn’t worked and … well, Christianity in general seemed a joke to me, so …” She finally looked at Lauren and smiled a weak, sad smile, her lashes spiked with tears. “I joined the Alliance. I mean, I didn’t just jump into it. I did some reading, some research. It had a little bit of everything. Eastern religions, a touch of Christianity, even some secular humanism. So I moved here, into the colony up behind the hotel. I was there for a year. It wasn’t a bad year, but … well, it … didn’t work. That’s all. It just didn’t work for me. Just like Catholicism. So I backed out. I tried to back out graciously. I had no money because I’d given them everything. I mean everything, every penny I had. They took good care of me while I was there, but when I decided to leave … they didn’t want me to. I had nothing, so I had no way to leave. I got a job here in town, moved into the boardinghouse … and they … they …”

  She stopped. Silence. Joan stared at the wall.

  “They what, Joan?”

  She shook her head. Shrugged. Smoked. Punched out her cigarette and lit another. After finishing her coffee, she took a long, deep drag on her cigarette and exhaled smoke with tightly closed eyes and a stiff posture. Then she relaxed, looked at Lauren, smiled gently and said, “I finally had enough money to move to Grover. I’d really come to like this town, the people who live here, so … I stayed. I plan to stay. Paul was my best friend and I’m going to miss him, but … I’ll get by.”

  “What did they do, Joan? You were going to say something about them, about the Alliance.”

  The cover came back; she frowned briefly, shrugged and said, “They just didn’t want me to leave, that’s all. Sort of like my husband.” She laughed. “But that’s okay. I did leave them. And I stayed in Grover anyway.”

  “Anyway? Did they try to chase you away?”

  She thought about that a moment. Chewed her lip. Took a puff. “Yeah. They did. But I’m here to stay. I was angry that they wanted me to leave someplace I loved. They don’t bother me now.” A brief, flitting smile. “I’ve sort of become a fixture.”

  “What did they do?”

  Joan looked at her differently, then. Suspiciously. “Why?”

  “I’m just … curious.” Lauren blinked, backed off, feeling guilty again. “I’ve heard some … well, s
ome stories about them and I just wondered if they’re true.”

  “What stories?” Before Lauren could respond, Joan said, rather firmly, “If you think they’re so strange, why did you come to Grover in the first place? I mean, this is their headquarters.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean to say that I … I mean, well, I hope you’re not offended. I didn’t mean to insult your beliefs. After what you’ve been through, I can understand perfectly why you’d need something to turn to. My god, if anything ever happened to my son, I don’t know what I’d—” She realized her mistake mid-sentence and froze as Joan leaned forward suddenly, narrowing her eyes.

  “I thought you said you didn’t have any children.”

  Lauren felt sick and wanted to leave the diner as quickly as possible.

  “That’s what you said, isn’t it?”

  Her mouth moved, but no words came out, only the clicking of her throat opening and closing, until finally, “Well, yes, yes, we … well, we don’t actually have any. Children. But …”

  Suspicion poured like syrup over Joan’s face and she leaned so close, her breasts were mashed against the tabletop. “Who are you?” she whispered. “What do you want? Are you reporters?”

  “No, no, of course we’re … like my husband said, we’re … on vacation.” Lauren could feel her cheeks flushing, knew her guilt was brilliantly visible, and wanted to cry. Jordan would be furious. If he found out.

  “Why did he say you don’t have any children?”

  Lauren thought of a couple explanations she could give—“I have a son by another marriage, but he’s with his father,” or “We adopted a little boy who’s staying with my sister this week, but we don’t have any children of our own”—but knew she’d never be able to give either of them convincingly, if she could at all without stuttering like a nervous schoolgirl during show and tell.

  “Well?” Joan raised her voice slightly, impatient, indignant. “You said you don’t have any children. You sit here asking me all these questions like—Jesus, I don’t know—like you’re interviewing me, or something, and now you say you have a son. So what’s going on? Why did you say you don’t have any children?”