Dead Sand

by Brendan DuBois

  He nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.”

  “Mind if I ask you a couple of questions?”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  “Is your mother serious about wanting to close the Stone Chapel?”

  He was in his midtwenties, lean, with short brown hair and a puffy look about his face, as if he had been up for twenty-four hours straight, which was a reasonable guess considering what he and his mom had been up to.

  He said, “Even with Bronson running the joint, with all his energy and connections, it was a month-to-month challenge. You know? Signing up the acts, trying to get good talent, working in the kitchen … only one day off a week, on Monday … yeah, most times, it was a hell of a grind. So with Bronson gone … why put up with it, you know?”

  “I see,” I said, writing carefully in my notebook. “You know, I went through some newspaper archives about Bronson Toles and the Stone Chapel, and I never got a handle on how he and your mom met.”

  Vic smiled a little, like it was an old memory that was amusing. “Our rescuer—that’s what my mom called him. You know, she turned out to be right.”

  “In what way?”

  “Didn’t know my real dad at all,” Vic recalled, looking away from me just for a moment, as if looking at something far away. “My mom dropped out of real life before I was born, moved into a commune in the upper part of Vermont. Called the Northeast Kingdom—one of the most remote places in God’s New England you’ll ever see. My dad was a part-time logger, full-time hash smoker, and got in a fight with a runaway chain saw and lost. So my mom raised me up there with the others, homeschooled me. We lived off the land, fished, hunted, starved and froze in the winter, and used a two-hole outhouse. Me, I was young, it was an adventure—but I think Mom got tired of it. Then Bronson came by, on some sort of safe-energy tour, and the two of them clicked and … there you go…”

  “Sounds like a good story,” I said.

  “A good real-life story,” Vic said. “I grew to really know him as a dad, even went along with him adopting me. You know … first time I used a flush toilet was when I moved to Tyler. Funny, hunh?” Then he wiped at his eyes a couple of times and turned away and said, “Enough, okay?”

  “Sure,” I said, putting my pen and notebook away. “Enough.”

  * * *

  Outside I met up with Paula, and she said, “Off to my office and file, Lewis, if I can get the energy up. A hell of a story, hunh? The Stone Chapel, closing. See you later.”

  “You, too, Paula—and good to see you.”

  She smiled. “Good to be seen, but … only by you. You know? I’ll be one happy girl when they catch that damn shooter.”

  When she left I moved through the moving crowd of journalists and cameramen, something caught my eye. It was the guy that had been up on the stage, talking to Laura. He was speaking into his cell phone and getting into a black BMW with Massachusetts license plates. A Realtor, getting ready to sell the joint on Laura’s behalf? I was too far away to talk to him, but close enough to write down his license plate number. Maybe I could wheedle a trace from Diane Woods, though that was proving more and more difficult lately with more stringent rules from the new police chief.

  “Lewis! Lewis!” I turned and saw a slight woman pushing her way through the journalists. It was Haleigh Miller coming up to me. I could tell from her puffy and red face that she had been crying during the memorial service. I went over to her, and she said, “The meeting with Curt Chesak. It’s set up for tonight.”

  I couldn’t help it. I stared at her in amazement. “How the hell did you do that?”

  She said, “I told you I had friends … and some connections. So are you still interested?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Tonight, six o’clock. At the parking lot of the Laughing Bee doughnut shop, in Falconer.” She wiped at her runny nose. “I’ve … I’ve got to get going. The occupation the day after tomorrow is going to keep us all busy. Oh, what a sad, sad day … to lose Bronson, to lose that voice, and now”—her voice broke—“I’m out of a job. I mean, it was just a job while I’m in school, but God, it meant so much to me…”

  Seeing her like that made me feel like I had two left feet and two left hands. “You heard what Laura said. Maybe somebody will take it over.”

  Haleigh managed a smile. “Maybe, but even then … it will never be the same, will it. Never be the same.”

  For a moment I remembered being her age, when it seemed possible that you could outline your life’s course for the next twenty years, and I said, “You’re right. It’ll never be the same.”

  * * *

  At home I scrounged lunch from whatever was still within the stale date that was existing in my refrigerator, and when I was finished writing my piece for Shoreline on the memorial service, my phone rang, and it was Paula Quinn.

  “How are you doing over there by the ocean?” she asked.

  “Doing fine,” I said. “How are you doing at the Chronicle?”

  “Lousy,” she said, sighing. “I just … I just don’t have the energy for this, Lewis.”

  There was a click-click on the phone line, meaning an incoming call was heading my way, but I ignored it. “Go on,” I said.

  Another sigh. “Deadline is in a half hour, and Rollie keeps on staring and staring at me, and when I look at the computer screen … nothing’s coming out. Nothing at all.”

  Another click-click on the phone line.

  I closed my eyes, recalling all the times I had seen Paula at the scene of multiple-car accidents, arsons, and the occasional untimely death. Each time this young blond woman with the slight body would go in and come out with the story, and get it done with hours to spare. Whoever was on the other end of this phone line was not Paula Quinn.

  “What do you need?”

  “Excuse me?” she asked.

  “What do you need? How many words?”

  No answer, and I thought for a moment that she had hung up the phone in anger. Then she spoke, her voice lowered to a slight whisper, like a little girl asking a storefront Santa Claus for a gift and not sure if she was going to get it.

  “About eight hundred words. That’s it.”

  “Your e-mail address the same?”

  “Lewis, you can’t be serious, this is—”

  “You’ll get your eight hundred words, but only if you let me get off the phone. You can take those words and rearrange them anyway you like, but I won’t let you miss deadline.”

  She tried to speak, failed, and I said, “I’m hanging up now. Check your e-mail in-box in a while.”

  * * *

  After hanging up the phone I went back to my notes and the story I had filed for Shoreline, and took a breath and went to work. I’m sure Denise Pichette-Volk wouldn’t have been thrilled at what I had been doing, but I didn’t care. Paula needed help, and if it meant breaking what few rules journalism had left, I was okay with that.

  Boy, was I under a deadline. I wrote and wrote, and the phone rang once and I could hear the answering machine downstairs pick up, but I kept on typing. When I was done and had sent the story as an e-mail attachment to Paula, I looked up at the clock and saw I had done it with ten minutes to spare. Nice job. I got up and stretched some and went downstairs and checked my answering machine, where I had missed a message from my dear Annie Wynn.

  Damn.

  * * *

  I picked up the downstairs phone and started dialing frantically, and I sat back on the couch in relief when she picked up.

  “My dear boy, where the hell have you been?” she asked. “You must have been on the phone when I called. Why didn’t you pick up?”

  “I was … I was helping someone out, and I was on the upstairs phone. No caller ID screen on that one.”

  There was a din in the background of her phone, and I said, “At the airport?”

  “I am,” she said. “About to get on a plane, go for a 6:00 P.M. meeting in Arlington, and then I’m catching an early flight tomorrow to Manches
ter. Will be there at 9:00 A.M. Or have you forgotten our date?”

  “Not for a moment,” I said, hoping she believed me, “and I’m glad it’s tomorrow. Looks like my day is wide open.”

  “Glad to hear that. Who was so important on the phone that you couldn’t talk to me?”

  Ouch.

  “Paula Quinn, from the Chronicle,” I said. “We were both at a news event this morning, and she needed some help on a story.”

  Annie said, “Oh, that sounds nice. Is that all the help she needed?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Good,” she said. “Because I don’t want to come up there and have to kick her ass, and then yours.”

  I smiled. “No ass kicking required. You just get up here.”

  “Fine,” she said. “Southwest Airlines, arriving in. Manchester at 9:00 A.M. You be there, friend, or I’ll think you’re sniffing around your old girlfriend.”

  I was going to say that what Paula and I had was more complicated than the old boyfriend/girlfriend routine, but I let it be.

  “Deal,” I said. “Are you packing anything special in your luggage?”

  A low laugh that warmed me. “Just you see.” There was an echo of an announcement in the background, and she said, “Flight just got called. See you tomorrow.”

  “Oh yes,” I said, and I hung up the phone.

  * * *

  Just before 6:00 P.M. I was parked in a gas station lot across the street from the Laughing Bee doughnut shop in Falconer. In this part of town, Route 1—or Lafayette Road—was three lanes, with a turning lane in the center. At one time there had been rows of old colonial houses lining this road, but they had all been bulldozed, burned, or converted into office space. Now this stretch of Falconer had grocery stores, box stores, fast food restaurants, muffler shops, a store that sold pornography, jewelry stores, and lots and lots of firework stores. Not to pick on the fine people of New Jersey, but for those thinking New England was all white church steeples and fine green lawns, this stretch of New Hampshire looked like it belonged at an exit off the Garden State Parkway.

  My destination this early evening was the small parking lot of the Laughing Bee doughnut shop, and as I sat in my Ford Explorer, I had a bit of doubt about why I was there. There was that drive, of course, of finding out who had traumatized my friend Paula, and as an afterthought—as cold as it sounds—the killer of Bronson Toles. But to what purpose? The state police and the Falconer police had better resources than I did. What I did have was that stubborn drive to make it all right, and that’s what prompted me to start up my Explorer and drive across the street. If I had a hand in getting the shooter, then Paula wouldn’t have to worry anymore about a nameless, faceless killer out there, staring at her through a rifle’s telescopic site. Maybe that would help her get back to the old Paula.

  Besides, whatever I learned tonight could be used for Shoreline, and to keep Denise Pichette-Volk … well, if not happy, at least satisfied.

  * * *

  The logo of the Laughing Bee doughnut shop was pretty self-explanatory, with a grinning bumblebee in flight, holding a variety of doughnuts in its legs. The store was closed, and there were two other vehicles parked in the lot: a hybrid Prius and an old Chevy pickup truck. Both vehicles were empty.

  I looked at the dashboard clock: 6:05 P.M.

  I guess fighting against the Man meant not worrying too much about appointments and such. Then again, maybe my escorts were hiding in one of the vehicles. I turned around and the parking lot was still empty.

  The dashboard clock said 6:10 P.M. I rapped my fingers against the steering wheel. Five more minutes and then I’d be out of here, Curt Chesak or no Curt Chesak. I waited some more. Three National Guard Humvees motored by, and a straggling line of protesters across the street jeered at them.

  It was now 6:17 P.M. I started up the engine and—

  Somebody rapped a hand against the driver’s window.

  I lowered the window, and whoever was there stepped back.

  “Don’t look back at me, all right?” came a male voice. “You look back at me, and the meet is off.”

  “All right,” I said. “I won’t look back.”

  “The rear doors open?”

  I made sure by toggling a side switch. There was a click, and then the door opened, and my visitor got in. “Don’t look back,” he warned again. “Look back and—”

  “Yeah, I got it,” I said. “If I look back, the meet is off.”

  “Nice to see you got it. Now drive. Go out and take a left.”

  I pulled out into traffic and turned left and followed my unseen visitor’s directions. We drove south for a few moments and went through an intersection that marked the closed South Gate of Falconer Station, where there was a crowd of about fifty or so demonstrators waving signs, chanting, and posing for a couple of television crews that had illuminated the area with a harsh light. A billboard inside the gate announced that Falconer was producing safe energy for one million New England homes, and that sign had been defaced by what looked to be paintball guns.

  My escort in the rear seat snorted something as we drove by, and I said, “You say something?”

  “Yeah, I did. Sheep.”

  “What sheep?”

  “Those sheep,” he said. “Sheep posing for other sheep, everyone doing their roles—but, buddy, me and my friends, and Curt Chesak, we sure the fuck aren’t sheep.”

  We drove south for a couple more minutes and, following my unseen escort’s directions, I took a left and a right and another left, and I was in a residential area of Falconer, with trailer parks and tired-looking Cape Cod homes. At one point there was a dirt road off to the left in a thick grove of pine trees, and I was tapped on the shoulder.

  “There. Take that left.”

  I drove down that dirt road a few more yards, and he said, “Stop.”

  I stopped and put the Ford in park, and he said, “All right, shut the engine off. Here’s a few rules before we proceed.”

  I switched the engine off and said, “Where did you learn this? At some professional protester class at school?”

  “Very funny,” he said. “No, my dad, he worked for the big bad CIA. Didn’t tell me about anything he did for real for the agency, but did teach me some tradecraft. Has proven very useful. So here’s the rules. When you step out, you’re going to leave everything electronic behind. Got it? Cell phone, pager, PDA. Everything like that stays behind.”

  So I worked some and did as I was told. I didn’t like it one bit, but this young man behind me was in the driver’s seat, no matter where I was sitting. When I was finished he said, “One more thing. And if you don’t agree, then—”

  “Let me guess. The meet’s off.”

  “Yeah. The meet’s off.”

  “What’s the one more thing?”

  He said, “I’m sorry, but it has to be done. Curt Chesak is one of the most wanted men in New England, and his security is paramount. So we’re going to step out of your gas guzzler here, and there’s going to be a hood placed over your head. Just for a while. You’ll be taken to see him, have your interview, and then be brought back here.”

  I didn’t like any of it, not one bit, but I also didn’t like the thought of Paula Quinn, home by herself, shivering with fear over the thought of being in a killer’s sights again.

  “All right, but I have something to share with you.”

  “Go ahead.”

  I said, “This goes well, I get to see Curt Chesak, or friend, I’m going to make you very, very unhappy.”

  “Some threat,” he said, voice just a bit sneering.

  “No,” I said. “Some promise—and I’m ready.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  So I stepped out into the cool October air, and my companion stepped out as well, and in a practiced move, he slipped a cloth bag over my head. It felt like one of those cloth shopping bags that stores encourage you to use to save the earth, which I thought was fairly humorous. My escort took my arm and s
aid, “Just a few feet down the road, all right? Then we’re going to go for a short ride. In the meantime, if you give me your keys, we’ll move your Ford back to the doughnut shop parking lot, put your key on one of the rear tires.”

  “Why can’t it stay here?”

  “Because it can’t. If you think we’re low enough to steal your vehicle, don’t worry about it. Curt gave specific orders that neither you or your ride was going to get messed up.”

  Happy that my auto insurance was up to date, I reluctantly passed over my keys. I then let him lead me on down the road, and I made out the sound of a car engine. As he held my arm I said, “Since we’re getting pretty familiar with each other, mind telling me your name?”

  He laughed. “Why should I?”

  “Why not? Or are you wanted by the police as well?”

  “Not yet,” he said. “Not yet. You can call me … Todd. How does that sound?”

  “If it works for you, that’s fine.”

  The sound of the car engine grew louder, and then we stopped. I heard a car door being opened, and Todd said, “I’ll help you in. Put your hands out some, that should help.”

  I managed to get into the rear seat without falling on my butt, and Todd came in next to me. My hands on the seat revealed it to be some sort of soft leather, and I said, “I’m disappointed in you folks. These are leather seats. Not very environmentally correct, are they?”

  Todd said, “Not too soon to cancel everything, if that’s what you want.”

  “You’re boring me with those threats, Todd. So put them away for somebody else.”

  The car was put into gear, and for fifteen or twenty minutes we drove around, with sharp turns, brakings, and a few backups. I guess Todd and his driver thought I had some sort of superhuman power so I could count the turns and keep track of the time by tapping my feet or something, but I was just finding it stuffy and clammy inside the shopping bag. The car went down another bumpy dirt road for a distance and then stopped.

  “All right,” Todd said. “A bit more walking and we’re there.”