Martin found the energy to lift the remote. On-demand movies. The Tonight Show. Baseball Tonight. The Weather Channel. Fox News. Some cookie cutter rom-com. House Hunters. Martin paused for a while on Man v. Food and a burrito that could have fed an entire Somali family for a week.
“What are you doing, Martin?” he asked himself as he put on his shoes. He asked it several times more as he bought gas and a giant cup of Diet Mountain Dew. The GPS gave him three hours, but he could do it in two.
~ * * * ~
“Bangor, Maine, you’re Beyond Insomnia.”
“Hey, great to be on again, Lee. This is Patrick from Bangor. I don’t know if you remember me. I called in a couple months ago about the location of the Pentagon and its correlation with a nexus in the Earth’s force lines.”
“Oh, sure, welcome back.”
“Yeah. Let’s see, I’ve been awake for a long time. Renewed my membership last month.”
“Glad to hear it. Do you have a question for Guest X?”
“Oh. Absolutely, man. This kind of thing is right in my area of study. How it’s all connected—Roswell, the CIA, the United Fruit Company, all that. It’s amazing to talk to this person. I have a pretty good idea who it is, but I won’t say. Don’t want to out someone who’s a big hero of mine.”
“I’m sure he’d appreciate that. What’s your question?”
“Yeah. It’s an honor to talk to you, sir. You mentioned the memo that President Kennedy sent out a few days before Dealey Plaza, asking the CIA for all the information about Roswell. You know how he asked for them to pretty much hand the data over to NASA, and how Kennedy tried to excuse it all by claiming that he needed to know about UFOs in case the Soviets figured out what we were doing in their airspace and all…”
“Yes. What’s your question?”
“Well, they killed Kennedy to keep the truth from coming out about Roswell, but who is ‘they’? Who actually had the most to lose? Of course it’s the aliens. The CIA is just a bunch of men. The aliens didn’t want to be outed. So even if a human pulled the trigger, it must have been the aliens that gave the order. But this means that aliens held positions of power, and probably still do.”
“Thank you, Patrick. Well, Guest X? Could JFK’s assassination indicate that there are aliens active in the United States shadow government?”
“There has been some speculation of this kind. I’m personally not convinced, although there have been many strange occurrences involving known members with Majestic clearance over the years. Beginning obviously with Forrestal’s supposed suicide. While the reports of dead or dying EBEs in the Roswell craft are credible and corroborated, the reports of living EBEs interacting with officials are less so. But your concern for motive is valid. Why would the government care so much to keep the aliens secret? Especially when such a secret can never hold. National security means something very different today than it did during the Cold War. Especially when the war on terror is—and forgive me if I’m not being politically correct—but it’s a religious war. It’s long been assumed that proof of alien life would significantly alter citizens’ religious worldview. Why not drop the A-bomb, then, so to speak? Why not release the proof of extraterrestrials and destabilize organized religion, weakening bases of terror? If the shadow government doesn’t do this, it means one of two things: One, there are valid reasons for keeping the truth hidden, or two, they are being compelled to publicly deny the truth. I don’t like either of those alternatives, because they point to something potentially very nasty going on.”
~ * * * ~
Herbert’s Corner floated like a mirage in the night. The gas pumps gleamed. The neon flashed. Insects swirled and collected around the buzzing lights as if trying to rescue, or join, their perished brethren inside the plastic. Gary, the overnight clerk, sat an uncaring guard over the embarrassment of prepackaged riches in the convenience store. Patsy Cline lamented to an empty diner from the jukebox.
Eileen looked up from a magazine as Martin took a stool at the counter. “Martin? Whatcha doin’ here? You know what time it is?”
“I know,” said Martin.
“Coffee?”
“Please.”
“You lookin’ to eat, too?”
“Came to see you, actually,” said Martin.
“Well, if you’ve come to find out what happened with Cheryl, you’ve come to the wrong place. Surprised us all when she left town.”
“You still haven’t heard anything? Because I’m having a hard time accepting this story about an Internet romance. I’ll admit I’m practically a stranger, but it doesn’t seem like her,” said Martin.
“People do strange things,” said Eileen. “And this town can do strange things to people.”
“But Cheryl?”
“You think you know people, but you really don’t,” said Eileen.
“She gave me her phone number that night I had dinner at her place.”
Eileen slid a bowl of creamers and the sugar shaker within reach. “How about some pancakes?”
“I could use some pancakes,” said Martin.
“Luis, tall cakes,” Eileen called through the window.
“Is anyone looking out for Stewart?” asked Martin.
“Laura and Milton have been looking in on him,” said Eileen. “A couple other neighbors.”
“I think he’s sicker than he lets on,” said Martin.
“Why do you say that?” asked Eileen.
“Cheryl said he won’t go see a doctor.” Martin ached to tell her about Stewart’s visit but shut himself up with a gulp of coffee.
When Eileen set his pancakes down, the scoop of butter slid off the top and began to dissolve into a foamy pool on the side of the plate. She added a little pitcher of maple syrup to the counter. “You need anything else, my dear?”
“What can you tell me about what happened to Cheryl’s mother?”
“Oh, you don’t need to worry about all that,” said Eileen.
“Please,” said Martin. “Did you know her?”
“I met her after she came back to town. I started here in 1986. I was her replacement, in fact.”
“Eighty-six? That’s when she disappeared?”
“Right after Cheryl was born. Right after Herbert Stamper was killed, too.”
“He was killed?”
“Yep, shot. Right there in the store. Holdup, I guess. Weren’t more than a hundred bucks in the till.”
“This all happened about the same time?”
“Linda had her baby. Then Herbert got shot. Then Linda ran off.”
“Linda was Cheryl’s mom?”
“Her name was Linda Laughlin.”
“I’ve heard that Cheryl’s grandma worked here, too.”
“I didn’t know Margie. She died before I moved to town,” said Eileen.
“And they made the rhubarb pie?” asked Martin.
“Now, where’d you hear about the rhubarb pie? We ain’t had that since…”
“Since Cheryl’s mom disappeared?”
“What are you getting at, sweetie?” asked Eileen.
“What was the deal with the rhubarb pie?” asked Martin.
“That pie built Herbert’s Corner. Used to be signs fifty miles out in every direction. Don’t know how it was that good, but people would drive miles out of their way for a piece. They said truckers would eat an entire pie in one sitting and then ask for more. Story was that Margie and Linda had some secret recipe. I used to think that it was just one of Stamper’s tall tales, but then after Linda left, no one could make the pie. The new owners took out the bakery anyway.”
“Who were the new owners?”
“Some corporate group. They own a bunch of truck stops from Texas on up.”
Martin didn’t realize he was tapping on his plate until Eileen glanced at his fork and said, “You’ve got a Columbo look in your eyes. What are you thinking?”
Martin sank his fork into the last pancake. “I shouldn’t have come. I’m going to drive m
yself crazy.”
Eileen peered into his eyes. “Something happened to you. What do you know?”
“Maybe I listen to Lee Danvers a little too much,” said Martin.
“All right, finish up,” said Eileen.
“What?”
“I’m not the one you need to be talking to.”
Chapter 8
Gary barely looked up from his Soldier of Fortune magazine when Eileen called across the store that she was stepping out. She led Martin out the back door to her Dodge Shadow. As she turned out onto Highway 15, she lit up a cigarette. Martin cleared his throat, and she muttered an apology and rolled down the window.
Eileen didn’t slow up through Brixton. She waved her cigarette at the lurking deputy, who flashed his lights but didn’t pull out after her.
“Shouldn’t we call ahead?” Martin asked.
“She’ll be up. She listens to that blamed show all night, just like all you drivers.”
A couple of miles out of Brixton, Eileen turned onto a dirt lane, then another, then one more. They approached a lonely orange light clinging to a pole outside a mobile home in a barbed-wired half-acre. The front door opened before Martin had a chance to shut his car door.
The woman in the doorway must have been about a hundred. She wore a housecoat and sported a shotgun that would probably have put her back through a wall if she ever fired it. “Eileen,” she yelled. “Scared the bejeezus out of me pullin’ up this time of night.”
“Evenin’, Doris. Care for some company?”
Doris Solberg studied Martin from head to toe. “Little young for you, ain’t he?” she said.
“Get your dirty mind back inside before you catch a cold,” said Eileen.
Doris’s double-wide had wood-paneled walls and shag carpet. The furniture wouldn’t have been out of place on That ’70s Show. Lee Danvers’s voice drifted down the hall from a bedroom.
“Can I get you anything?” asked Doris. She shuffled into the kitchen, flipped on the light, and set the shotgun on the turquoise laminate counter. Martin declined. “Sit down,” she said, waving behind her to the little round table as she opened the refrigerator.
Doris clanked a six-pack of Rolling Rock in the middle of the table. “Been saving this for company,” she said and pulled three free. Martin took one. Couldn’t hurt to be polite. Doris’s frizzled, silver hair was a fright, but her face was bright and alert. “Now what’s going on?” she asked, taking her can. Her finger looked like it would snap as she pried the tab, but the aluminum yielded first.
Eileen introduced Martin as “the young salesman who was after Cheryl Laughlin.”
“I thought Cheryl ran off with you,” said Doris. Martin shook his head insistently.
“No, Doris,” said Eileen. “Remember, she met some man on the computer.”
Doris smacked her lips at Martin after a long pull of beer and said, “Must piss you off.”
“He came to the Corner tonight asking about Linda and the rhubarb pie and Herbert. Thought he should be talkin’ to you,” said Eileen.
“Long before your time, son,” said Doris. “You aren’t even from Brixton. Where are you from?”
“Billings,” Martin said.
“Billings,” Doris scoffed. “That town killed Brixton. They put in the Walmart and the Price Club. Don’t get me started on Billings. Awful place. The traffic…”
“Was anyone after Linda’s secret recipe before she disappeared?” Martin asked. The women looked at him as if he’d grown antlers.
“Now, what would make you go and ask a question like that?” asked Doris.
Martin studied his motives in the faces of two of Brixton’s, if not the state’s, most notorious gossips. Was he indulging a fantasy? Had he misunderstood Stewart? Had he misread Cheryl? He had to be back at work in Belgrade in five hours. The beer tasted about two months past its sell-by date. But he couldn’t help himself. He set the beer aside. “Stewart Campion broke into my apartment last night and said some very strange stuff.”
Doris pursed her lips. “You don’t even know this,” she said to Eileen, “but a company did want to buy Linda’s recipe. When she was pregnant with Cheryl.”
“In 1986?” Martin asked.
Doris nodded. “She told me the recipe was no big deal, but that if some big corporation wanted to pay her for it, she wasn’t going to say no. She wouldn’t have to work as many hours. Maybe stick to baking and stop waitressing. Maybe put away some money for the baby. Herbert helped her make the deal, but they kept it real quiet. He didn’t want the corporation revealing where they’d gotten the recipe. Wanted to keep his little world-famous gimmick.”
“How do you know all this?” asked Martin.
“Doris was sleeping with Herbert Stamper,” Eileen told him.
“Yes, and you’ve done no better,” said Doris. Eileen frowned. “But it all went to hell. She gave them the recipe, but when they went to make it for themselves, it wasn’t the same. The corporation demanded to know what she’d left out. Herbert was furious. He stood to get a good chunk of the money. I remember him and Linda shouting at each other up in his office. Then Cheryl was born, Linda was gone, and Herbert was dead.”
“Stewart thinks Cheryl was kidnapped. And that it’s connected to all this,” said Martin.
“Now that you say it, it doesn’t surprise me,” said Doris.
“But that’s ridiculous. No corporation would kidnap someone for a stupid pie recipe,” said Martin.
“Depends on the corporation,” said Doris, then added, “or the pie.”
“So there was a secret recipe?” asked Martin.
“All I know is that after Linda left, no one was ever able to make the pie again,” said Doris. “Lord knows I tried.”
“Cheryl made a pie for me,” said Martin.
“Now, that is interesting,” said Doris.
“But I didn’t tell anyone. I kept my mouth shut about the whole evening,” said Martin. “But it still doesn’t make any sense. Food companies have chefs and food scientists to develop recipes. They don’t need to rough up small-town bakers.”
“Unless they do,” said Doris.
“All right, enough with this enigmatic crap,” said Eileen. “Out with it, already. Tell us what you want to tell us. I gotta get back to the diner sometime this century.”
“I don’t want to tell you anything,” said Doris. “And you don’t want to hear it. ’Cause you know it’s all true.”
“I certainly do not know that,” said Eileen.
“Then why’d you bring this boy out here tonight?” asked Doris. “You knew exactly what I’d tell him. You want me to tell my crazy story so you can go back and tell him to pay no mind to old lady Solberg.”
“Just tell him, Doris,” said Eileen.
Doris narrowed her eyes. Martin shivered. “Twern’t no human corporation interested in Margie’s rhubarb pie,” said Doris. “You get my meanin’, son?”
A new hour of Beyond Insomnia began down the hall. “From Virginia Beach to Yreka, from the Rio Grande to…”
“The…truckers…Herbert’s…?” said Martin.
“That’s right,” said Doris. “They been comin’ since Herbert opened the place in ’46. And they loved nothin’ better than that infernal pie.”
“Do they still….?”
“I suppose they do,” said Doris. Eileen gave Martin a wide-eyed glance, committing to nothing. “But nowhere near as many as when Margie and Linda were bakin’.”
“Cheryl,” said Martin. “Then where is she?”
Doris captured Martin’s eyes. “Eighty-six was a long time ago. Five’ll get you ten that she’s run off with some slab to Boise. But if that ain’t the case, there’s not a blessed thing you or I can do about it.”
Eileen let Martin blink, then said, “Come on. Let’s let Doris get back to her show.”
As her headlights found the way back to Brixton, Eileen took a deep drag on a fresh cigarette and blew a cloud out her window. “Aren’
t you going to ask me if I buy it?” she asked.
“I don’t know what to ask,” said Martin.
The blinking yellow at the center of Brixton warned of something, but Martin couldn’t imagine what. Back at Herbert’s Corner, his FastNCo. truck waited like a long-lost memory.
“Why did you take me out there?” Martin asked after she shut off her engine.
“Because you care,” said Eileen. “Am I wrong?”
~ * * * ~
From the FastNCo. procedural manual for area representatives who’ve been up all night (among other distracting issues):
1. Make contact with the account holder. He/she may be an alien. If account has invoices outstanding, do not grab anyone by the collar and try to peel his/her false face off.
2. At FastNCo. installation, take a general survey. What the hell are you doing? Does your already-piddling job retain any shred of its significance when aliens have probably abducted your girlfriend? Can you even call her your girlfriend?
3. For each drawer:
a. Scan product code into FASsys. Scan it again. You’re not doing it right.
b. Stare at PIC card until you remember what you’re supposed to be doing. Remove inappropriate items and put them anywhere. Shoppers’ kids will mess it all up again anyway.
c. Weigh contents. (For products 1264-2350, hand count must be taken.) You’ll get right on that.
d. Record weight (or count). A kindergartner could do your job.
e. Restore inventory. Why are you on your knees in a hardware store while real live beings from another world are prowling around?
f. Confirm restoration of inventory with FASsys. You’re still using a PDA running on Windows C? This whole species is doomed.
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