Within These Walls

by Ania Ahlborn

  See you soon, J.

  He didn’t have much to go on, but he couldn’t help thinking that Halcomb had gotten her back. After all that time, he still had a hold on her.

  It was no coincidence that January Moore had repeated history, as if to commemorate the anniversary of her old friends’ deaths.

  STATESMEN JOURNAL

  March 16, 2014

  Salem, Oregon, Obituaries

  Janet “January” Moore

  May 15, 1961–March 14, 2014

  Janet “January” Moore passed suddenly on Friday, March 14. She was fifty-two years old. Janet was a long-standing resident who moved to Salem from Portland, Oregon, in the late 1980s. She was a big part of the Salem community, both as a small-­business owner and as a charity and church volunteer. She opened the Chartreuse Moose with Maureen Bennett in the summer of 2003, and sang in the Lord’s Shepherd Church choir as a soprano since 1995. Jan enjoyed traveling around the United States in her free time. She frequented the Washington State coast, where she hoped to one day own a summer home. Jan is survived by many friends who will remember her fondly.

  A celebration of her life will be held at McCreary & Sons Funeral Home on March 20. On behalf of her best friend Jan, Maureen Bennett requests that in lieu of flowers mourners make a small donation to Jan’s trust. The trust funds faith-based activities in maximum state prisons in the Pacific Northwest.

  “Be faithful to death, and I will give you the crown of life.”

  —The Book of Revelation, 2:10

  24

  * * *

  JEANIE REFUSED TO come down for dinner. She was still angry about the house, and Lucas had turned around and made it worse during Echo’s visit by pushing her out of the way. I’m really good at this single-parent stuff. He did the only thing he could think of—ordered pizza and left it on the kitchen island for his kid. Like a runaway with a single sandwich, hunger would wear her down. When it did, he didn’t want her to have to scavenge for a meal. Certainly, she wouldn’t ask him to get something to eat with her, not in her state of animosity.

  He spent the rest of the day in his study. His newfound information on January Moore enlivened his hope that maybe, possibly, there was still some life in this project. Perhaps, if he waited it out the way Echo had suggested, more hope would come.

  By the time something jarred Lucas from the glow of his computer screen, it was well after dark. It hadn’t been a sound—more of a feeling that he should have heard something. Then the moment was lost, but the cool shiver of air held enough whisper to draw his attention away from his work. This time, however, he wouldn’t get out of his seat. Not until he had lined up at least a thousand words, one after the other—even if it was just transcribing his and Maury’s call to the best of his recollection. At least, that’s what he had promised himself.

  That was before his gaze paused on the pictures pushpinned to the corkboard.

  Lucas leaned forward, pressing his chest against his desk to get a better look.

  Chloe Sears’s photograph hung upside down.

  Chloe wasn’t an overly attractive girl. In every picture he’d ever seen of her, she looked dead-eyed, stoned. Her mouth was perpetually open, if only a little bit. Her wide, flat nose gave her face a strange, cubist look; a personified Picasso, where no facial feature was in the right spot.

  Within the past few days, he had stared at that corkboard for hours. He’d paced back and forth in front of it, chewed away half his fingernails while inspecting computer printouts and news articles. Chloe had been right side up. Of that he was sure.

  He broke his promise, got out of his seat, and stepped across the study to the board. Had Jeanie not closed herself up in her room all night, she could have been the culprit.

  Lucas furrowed his eyebrows and pinned Chloe right side up.

  Chloe had been twenty-three years old the day she died. Her parents had described her as “fiercely independent” in a blip of an article appearing in The Denver Post after police identified her as one of Halcomb’s devout. To them, she hadn’t seemed like the type of girl susceptible to the charms of a weird guy traipsing up and down the Pacific coast. She had vanished from her Denver-based home in early 1979, but because she had just turned eighteen, the police refused to take the disappearance seriously. That, and the Sears’s track record of domestic disputes didn’t bode well for finding the missing girl. Chloe’s brother, Chris, had a habit of threatening his parents. Chloe’s mother was a drinker, and her father had a chronic case of apathy. After police discovered Chloe to be one of the nine dead in Pier Pointe, her younger sister, Callie, revealed that her deceased sibling had had a mean streak. Chloe had attempted to talk her little sister into joining Halcomb’s group in early 1982, only a few months before they set up camp in the forests of Northern California.

  Lucas had attempted to reach the Sears, but Chloe’s mother had succumbed to her alcoholism and died in 1995 of sclerosis of the liver. Chris Sears was in jail on multiple charges of rape and burglary. He wasn’t interested in talking to anyone about his sibling unless there was money involved; and Lucas didn’t have any to spare. He couldn’t find Callie anywhere. And while Chloe’s father still lived in the same house, when Lucas reached out to him, the cranky octogenarian called him “a gossip-mongering piece of shit” before damning him back to the worthless column or newspaper or wherever it was he had come from.

  Every one of Halcomb’s kids had a similar story to Chloe’s—and every lead Lucas had followed resulted in his getting shut down. Halcomb’s Faithful came from broken homes, were looking for a place to belong, and Jeff had a knack for making the unwanted feel special. He was an expert at saying the right thing at the right time. Charming and conniving, he stated the obvious in ways that made him look wise. Runaways were a disenchanted youth. Unappreciated victims of parents that not only misunderstood their children but also didn’t seem to care. Those parents knew that was the message Halcomb had been passing on to their children—kids that had taken their own lives for reasons no one understood. That kind of loss came with a lot of guilt, and guilt made people defensive. Nobody wanted to talk because everyone felt as though they were at fault . . . and perhaps in a way they were.

  He peered at Chloe’s photograph for a moment more, still perplexed by its hanging upside down. Maybe he was just losing it. He didn’t remember doing so, but he very well may have removed that photo while doing his research.

  Lucas ducked out of his study and glanced up the stairs. Jeanie’s door was still shut. He frowned and crossed the living room to the kitchen, his stomach rumbling at the thought of a few slices of cold pizza. But he stopped just before climbing the brick steps that would take him into the kitchen. There, hanging on the wall, was a framed family photograph, taken when Lucas and Caroline still lived in the big colonial in Port Washington. It remained Lucas’s favorite family photo, taken when Jeanie was two or three years old. The three of them sat on the brown front lawn, crispy autumn leaves surrounding them in shades of red and gold. Caroline’s dream home was behind them, out of focus but still dominating the background. He’d hung it to remind himself of what was important, to keep his motivations in check. Except that, now, he gave the picture a perplexed look. He would have passed it by without a second glance had the fucking thing not been hanging upside down. Just like Chloe.

  “What the hell?” He shot another look up at the second floor. Jeanie was screwing with him. She had to be. There was no other explanation. Except that he was almost positive Jeanie hadn’t gone into his study. The nagging voice at the back of his mind refused to go away.

  That photo of Chloe hadn’t been upside down, Lou. You know it hadn’t been. You’re just afraid of what it might mean.

  INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW OF CALLIE SEARS, EXCERPT

  March 24, 1983

  Investigative Officer: Russell Cole, badge number 381, Pier Pointe, Washington,
PD

  Russell Cole: Did Chloe tell you she was leaving before her disappearance?

  Callie Sears: She hinted at it for a long time, but she didn’t come out and say “Hey, I’m leaving tomorrow” or anything.

  RC: How did she hint at it?

  CS: She hated our parents. I mean, me and Chris, we have major issues with them, too, but Chloe really hated them. One time, when we were younger, she told me that she tried to poison our dad.

  RC: How old were you when she told you this?

  CS: I don’t know, maybe eight?

  RC: That would have made Chloe eleven, correct?

  CS: Yeah, but when she told me, she said that it had been a few years in the past, so maybe she was around my age when she actually tried to do it.

  RC: Did she tell you how she tried to poison your father?

  CS: Sure, with rat poison. She said she sprinkled it into his food.

  RC: And your father ingested this food?

  CS: I don’t know. She said he did, but I’m not sure that I ever really believed her.

  RC: Callie, you understand that Chloe was involved with a pretty nefarious group, correct?

  CS: (long pause) I guess I wasn’t all that surprised when I found out, honestly. I mean, it made me sad, but I wasn’t shocked or anything.

  RC: You expected her to get involved with people like this after she left home?

  CS: I guess I didn’t expect anything. Chloe was mean-spirited sometimes. I mean, I don’t like my parents, either, but I never thought about killing them or anything. You really think that group she was involved with was evil?

  RC: My opinion is irrelevant. Do you know if Chloe was involved in any type of religious activity?

  CS: Like, church and stuff? No way. Not unless she ran off and became a Bible thumper, but I don’t know anything about that.

  RC: What about any alternative beliefs? Did she hold any nontraditional views? Anything dark like witchcraft, possibly satanic in nature?

  CS: The group was satanic . . . ?

  RC: We’re trying to figure that out.

  CS: God. Did they really kill a baby?

  RC: I’m not at liberty to discuss case details at the moment. Can you answer my question?

  CS: I . . . I didn’t think she was satanic.

  RC: Did you speak with your sister after she left home at all?

  CS: Only once.

  RC: When was that?

  CS: It was around my birthday last year, so January of 1982.

  RC: How did Chloe reach out to you?

  CS: She called me, said she was heading up to see the redwoods with some friends. She asked me if I wanted to go. By then Chloe had been missing for almost a year. I hadn’t heard from her at all, and when she called me she sounded funny . . . so I told her no.

  RC: Funny how?

  CS: Just different, like when you haven’t heard someone’s voice in a long time. She was being really sweet, which was totally unlike her. I guess that’s why I knew something was up. Chloe was never nice to me.

  RC: Did you tell your parents that she called?

  CS: I mentioned it.

  RC: How did they react?

  CS: It didn’t really seem like they cared. Chloe always gave them a hard time growing up. I think they were kind of glad she took off, honestly. They seemed glad when Chris ended up getting arrested, too. Less people to worry about or something like that. (pause) Our folks aren’t exactly what you’d call superparents, you know? That’s why Chloe left. It’s probably why Chris got into the crap he got into. After Chloe called and offered for me to catch up with her in California, I sort of regretted telling her no . . . because maybe it would have been better than staying home. Thank God I didn’t though, right? (laughter, pause) Sorry. I shouldn’t even joke about that.

  RC: Callie, what did Chloe say to you during that phone call? Did she talk about this group of friends at all?

  CS: She just said that she finally found a place where she felt like she fit in, that she’d changed her name to symbolize her new beginning.

  RC: Changed her name to what?

  CS: Clover. She told me it meant “Chloe was over.”

  RC: Did she say anything else?

  CS: Yeah, that she felt bad for me that I was still trapped with my parents. She called them “oppressors.” She said she hoped that I had the strength of will to set myself free, and that there was another way. I asked her “Another way for what?” but she either didn’t hear me or didn’t want to answer.

  RC: So, she was inviting you to join the group?

  CS: I mean, I guess so?

  RC: When you turned down her invitation, what happened then?

  CS: She said that it was too bad and we’d probably never see each other again.

  RC: Did she say why that was?

  CS: Sure. She said that she was leaving her old life and everyone in it behind, and if I was content to keep living with our parents, I had obviously been brainwashed and she couldn’t talk to me anymore.

  RC: And that wasn’t enough to convince you to join whatever group she was involved in?

  CS: No. As I said, Chloe and me, we’re sisters . . . but we were never friends. For most of my life, I was convinced she hated my guts. Maybe she just wanted me to join so she could poison me the way she tried to poison our dad. The way she ended up poisoning herself.

  25

  * * *

  Friday, March 26, 1982

  Eleven Months, Nineteen Days Before the Sacrament

  IT HAD BEEN one month and four days since Avis flushed Audra’s pills down the toilet, and she’d never felt better.

  She and the girls had started a vegetable garden just shy of the cherry orchard. Soon they’d have cucumbers, carrots, and giant tomatoes as big as Avis’s swollen, bursting heart. The boys made improvements to the house, and while Avis hadn’t asked, she could only assume it meant they were planning on staying for good. Even Maggie was spending most of her time at the house, laughing with the group, partaking in the cooking and planting, acting like a childless woman rather than a single mom. Eloise remained with her grandmother while Maggie traipsed around Congressman Snow’s property, making it a point to regularly tell Avis how different she looked. Better. Like a new woman. And she never ever called Avis by her former name. It was almost strange how easily Maggie had taken to all the changes. Maggie was, by nature, a worrier, but not once did she voice any worry about the strangers that had become Avis’s surrogate family. And while Avis found Maggie’s lack of concern a little odd, she didn’t want to rock the boat. Acceptance was a good thing, and this new life was exactly what Avis needed.

  That new life consisted of shared clothes and shared lovers—though, admittedly, the latter took Avis a bit by surprise. She discovered this particular departure from the ordinary during her routine of going from room to room to collect dirty laundry.

  The door to the boys’ room had been left ajar and she simply walked in. There, upon the bed, she found a quartet of boys and girls in a tangle of arms and legs that seemed to pulsate like a writhing ball of flesh. She caught a glimpse of Lily’s fiery hair. She heard Robin moan from somewhere beneath the pile. She watched Noah throw his head back and regard her with his giant eyes, his hands gripping an indiscernible mound of muscle that didn’t belong to him. When she and Deacon made eye contact, she stumbled out of the room and slammed the door behind her. The snapping of the door against the jamb only amplified her mortification.

  Avis rushed down to the laundry room and busied herself, trying to forget what she’d just seen. She had never thought of herself as particularly innocent, having suffered through a promiscuous streak as a teen between attempts on her own life. But now her own sense of naïveté left her flabbergasted. All at once, she was repulsed and excited. Had they really been doing what she thought they were doing . .
. and would they ever invite her to join?

  A cacophony of rivaling thoughts rolled around her skull. She sat down next to the washer and tried to concentrate on the tattered Aldous Huxley paperback she had stuffed into the back pocket of her jeans. But amid the clanging of snaps and zippers in the clothes dryer, she couldn’t shake the sound of Robin’s breathless pleasure.

  Her thoughts refused to stay in line. She sat there for what felt like an hour, trying to figure out whether to be upset or amused, wondering if she should pretend she hadn’t seen a thing. Every mother has the miraculous ability of momentary blindness. Surely, Avis could summon the power of erasing memory the way one would wipe clean a crude picture drawn in chalk.

  But before she could figure out how to handle any of it, her thoughts veered off in an altogether different direction, leaving her with a queasy, twisting ache in the pit of her stomach. Because if Deacon and Noah were sleeping with Lily and Robin—sleeping together rather than as exclusive couples—what did that mean when it came to Clover and Gypsy, to Sunnie, to Jeff, whose bed she was frequenting on a regular basis? She wanted to believe that she was special, that she was his and he was hers. She had assumed exclusivity. But as she sat there clutching Brave New World in a tight roll of soft pages and tattered cardboard, she realized that her assumption had been wrong. Maybe that was why Maggie was hanging around so often. Maybe, despite trying to forget how easily her best friend was able to capture attention, that same friend was going behind her back, sleeping with Jeffrey while Avis worked in the garden, told Avis how good she looked to keep her off track.

  No, she wouldn’t.

  Avis’s stomach heaved.

  That bitch!

  The book tumbled to the floor.

  She threw herself at the wash sink that stank of borax and bleach. Her breakfast splashed against the metal bottom of the basin like abstract art. Tears streamed down her face from the effort. For all she knew, Jeff was sleeping not just with Maggie but with all the girls. The fact that it had taken her so long to figure it out was probably some sort of inside joke, so utterly obvious that it marked her as an idiot. A stupid, worthless, infantile fool.