Shackled

by Ray Garton

  Garner looked at Coll with half a grin and said, "You know, if I were in show business, I wouldn't come out on stage unless you introduced me!" He tapped the open book with a finger and asked, "So, you want to hear any more of this, or did that little passage make my point?"

  Bent muttered, "Um, yes, I think it made your point quite well."

  "Okay." Garner slapped the book shut and reached for another. This one still had a dust jacket and, although somewhat weathered, looked newer than the last. "Now, this is a book written by a former police officer named Thomas Dutton. He worked in a small central California town during the seventies, um ... let's see, the town was ... yeah, Irving. Irving, California. You might remember this guy. He tried really hard to get as much publicity as possible when he quit the force. He wanted people to hear his story. But nobody took him that seriously back then. Now ... well, I think it'd be a different story now, what with all those TV shows, you know. Donahue, Geraldo, A Current Affair, all those guys probably would've greeted him with open arms. But back then things were a little different. So he had a harder time getting his story out."

  "And what ... exactly ... was his story?" Bent asked, reaching for his sandwich and slowly unwrapping it in his lap, more for something to do than anything else; his appetite was rapidly leaving him.

  "Well, he left the force during a period when a number of ritualistic murders were taking place in and around Irving. That's why I thought you might have heard of him, because those murders made some news for a while. Some ... but not much, which is interesting considering how sensational they were. Even then, the papers loved a good grisly murder — I mean, haven't they always? — and better yet if there was a series of them, right? Okay, so anyway, Dutton claims he left the force for some reasons that are even more sensational." He started thumbing through the book, stopping for just a moment to push his glasses up on his nose.

  Bent had taken a bite of his sandwich and chewed slowly as he waited ... and waited. He waited for so long that he finally stopped chewing, as if he were watching a suspenseful moment in a film.

  Finally, Garner raised his head and looked at Bent, smiling. Bent continued chewing.

  "Is it okay?" Garner asked. "The sandwich, I mean?"

  Bent flinched. "Hm? Oh, yeah, it's great. Turkey and cheese, I think."

  "That would be the farmer's cheese. I think it goes best with the sliced turkey breast." Then he went back to searching through the book. Finally, he held up a hand, shot a forefinger toward the ceiling. "Here it is. Okay, this is what he writes: 'It was while I was working graveyard after the fifth murder that I went into the captain's office looking for the McDowell file, which I needed for a report I was typing up. I knew he had been reading it that afternoon and expected to find it on his desk. When I didn't, I checked the top drawer, then the others. There was a locked drawer that Captain Dryer was always complaining about because it didn't always stay locked; sometimes if you tugged on it hard enough, it would pop open. I thought it was possible that he might have put the file in there because it did, after all, contain some confidential information about a prominent local family. I gave the drawer a couple of hard pulls and it opened. I had no intention of looking for anything but the file, and when I found it, I removed it from the drawer. The contents of the folder spilled out into the drawer as I lifted it. It was not the McDowell file, but a folder of snapshots.' "

  Garner licked his lips, smacked them quietly, with distaste, and looked at his guests.

  "You ready for this?"

  They nodded.

  "Okay. 'They were snapshots of the victims of all four of the recent murders that had taken place within the last year, each of them — one man, one woman, and the two male and female children — was depicted before, during, and after each killing, which was apparently performed on an altarlike platform by people wearing black robes. Only some of the faces of the black-robed murderers were visible, but I saw a profile in one of the snapshots that was unmistakable: Captain Dryer.' "

  Garner glanced up at them, as if to gauge their reactions. Then he returned to the book.

  " 'I was so terrified, I didn't know what to do. I decided it would be best to replace the snapshots in the folder, put the folder in the drawer, slam it firmly closed, and pretend I'd seen nothing. That is what I did. But only for a while. I could not pretend for very long.' " Garner leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over the open book in his lap. "Get the drift?"

  "The police department was doing it," Bent said quietly.

  "No, no. The department wasn't doing it, but they were part of it. A lot of people were part of it, according to Dutton. He finally quit, but even if he hadn't ... he would've been booted. Turned out they weren't actually real Satanists. I mean, they didn't really worship Satan. There were drugs involved. They were using the Satanic rituals on the people who worked for them to keep them afraid and respectful. And it had worked for a long time."

  "Can we reach this guy?" Bent asked, leaning forward. His voice was urgent. "Is he still living in central California?"

  "Oh, no. He's not still living anywhere. He didn't live to see his book published. In fact, he barely lived long enough to finish it." His sentence was punctuated by the smack of the book being closed. "He died in a car accident. It was a strange one, but that's what it was called. A car accident. Out on some road in the middle of nowhere several miles south of Bakersfield. Just, his car and a tree. And a lot of fire, twisted-up metal, and charred, crispy flesh."

  There was a long silence as Bent and Coll stared at Garner, both munching on their sandwiches. Finally, Bent took a sip of his coffee and asked, "Would you mind if I borrowed that book?"

  "No, not at all. This book doesn't require a deposit, but the Barchowski book would because it's so rare."

  "A deposit?"

  "Oh, for crying out loud, Bent," Coll said. "He's a researcher. This is what he does. That's why he has all this stuff. It's like a video store, but instead of movies, he's got, um, he's got — "

  "Information," Garner finished for him.

  "Yes. Information. And like anything else that's valuable, it's not free."

  "Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. Sure, that makes sense. Yeah, I wouldn't mind borrowing that Barchowski book, either. But, uh, there's something we haven't really touched on yet."

  "What's that?" Garner asked.

  "Children. Frankly, I've heard everything I've never wanted to hear about Satanism. My question is, does it ... or could it have anything to do with the story I'm doing about the missing boy?"

  Garner looked at Coll, smirking. "He's a tough one, huh?"

  Coll shrugged and sighed.

  Turning back to Bent, Garner said, "Tell you the truth, I don't know if it has anything to do with your missing boy or not. But I'm not finished yet. There's more." He reached for the third book and put it on his lap. "This book is called Darkness in Our Path. It's written by a man named Collin Foxworth. He's got a PhD in sociology and, by the way, he's an atheist. The reason I say that is that, in this book, he covers what is usually Christian territory. See, he decided he'd heard so much from fundamentalist Christians about rock music and Satanism being one and the same and destroying the lives of so many teenagers that he'd look into it himself. Which he did. And he looked long and deep, too. He's got a note to the reader here on the back of the book. I'll read some of it: 'With no religious background and with no belief whatsoever in god, Jesus Christ, or Satan, I have gone into the underground of rock music and — at first, entirely separately — Satanism, only to find that the information disseminated by the fundamentalist Christians was not entirely correct. Neither were my initial ideas correct. In fact, we were both wrong ... and we were both right. That dark and sinister underground does indeed exist, and there are indeed victims. But it has nothing to do with religion. Hideous crimes are taking place that, in the final analysis, have nothing to do with religion or god or Satan. It matters not a bit what beliefs you may hold; no one with a conscience can stand
by and remain blind to the horrifying crimes that are being committed around us because of these groups.' " Garner looked at Bent. "You interested in this book, too?"

  "Yes," Bent said. "Definitely."

  Garner tossed it onto the desk. "Well, then, I'll tell you what. You can borrow this one for nothing. Because I know Coll. And because the deposit on the Barchowski book is gonna kill ya." He laughed.

  "So, Garner," Coll said, biting into his sandwich and talking between chews, "do you think we're crazy or what? I mean, you heard our story, you know all the details. And you've read all this shit, we haven't."

  "Not quite all of it, but most."

  "Okay, okay, don't get technical, just tell us what you think."

  "Well, it's hard to say, really, it's hard to say." He frowned as he laced his fingers together over the generous curve of his belly. "It's really just ... hard to say." Suddenly he perked up and spun his chair to the right, wheeling it away from them, around the chair, behind the sofa, and toward the kitchen, all the while saying nothing.

  Bent frowned and turned to watch him go, asking quietly, "Um, where are you go — " He spun around to Coll and, still frowning, hissed, "Where's he going?"

  Coll held up a hand. "Just ... shh! Wait a sec," he whispered.

  They waited.

  The kitchen floor creaked and groaned beneath the wheels of Garner's chair, but still he did not speak.

  They heard the refrigerator door pop open, heard Garner mutter to himself quietly, then: "You know, there's always the chance this could be nothing more than a coincidence," he shouted so they could hear. "It's all so iffy. I mean, after all, the one single thing that started all this was that cross hanging upside down from the mirror in that car, right? And you got that from a woman who may, or may not, have actually seen it, right?" He waited. "Am I right?

  Bent and Coll replied simultaneously, "Yes, yes."

  "Well, then, you see what I mean. It could very well be a coincidence." There was more mumbling from the kitchen, then the refrigerator door closed with a kuh-thunk, and in the living room, they heard the whisper of plastic wrap, followed shortly by more creaks from the floor as Garner wheeled himself back into the room. In his lap, he had a sandwich with a bite out of it — which he was chewing — a bag of mesquite-flavored Gator Tators, and a paper towel. He parked his chair in its previous position, his round, soft face pulled into a look of intense concentration as his jaws worked. "Then again, maybe it's not," he said, just before swallowing his food. Then he bowed his head, as if praying, and began, carefully and delicately, to open the bag of Gator Tators. He slipped thumb and forefinger into the open bag, pulled out a single chip, twisted and thick and orange-red, and popped it into his mouth, closing his eyes a moment as he chewed on the crunchy morsel. His eyes popped open as he swallowed and he said, "You know, I don't think these are all the same. Every bag, I mean. This, for instance, is a good bag. They're thicker, crunchier, you know? That's how I like them. But some of them are thin and flimsy and tiny. No gutsy crunch to 'em." He reached into the bag for another.

  Ignoring his own sandwich, Bent leaned forward a bit and asked, "What makes you think this might not be a big coincidence?"

  Dabbing his mouth with the paper towel, Garner said, "Well, you see, these Satanists ... they really enjoy flaunting their practices. In a secretive sort of way."

  "I don't understand," Bent said.

  "That upside-down cross on the map. That kind of thing. They like that. It's almost like they have the mentality of comic-book villains ... except they are very, very serious. They have a sort of sick sense of humor. If you look hard enough, I mean if you have a good enough imagination and an open mind, you can see where they've been. But you can seldom see where they're going. That's why I say that cross on the map might be a coincidence. Because, technically, you could predict exactly where the next child would disappear. That would be too easy."

  "But what if they didn't expect anyone to see it before they were done?" Coll asked.

  "Yeah," Bent added, "what if they are done, but the disappearances just haven't been reported yet? There are only a few left."

  "That's the rub, that's the rub," Garner said, nodding. He brought the sandwich to his mouth and took a bite, then dabbed his lips as he chewed. "That possibility exists. You see, these people — at least, from what I've read in these books and a lot of others, because I've researched for writers of both fiction and non-fiction books about Satanism — they like to toy with those whom they know will be offended or horrified by what they're doing. But they usually do this without actually tipping their hands. Let's take Christians. They hate Christians. Christians aren't too crazy about them, either. But Satanists just love doing the things they do in such a way that would infuriate Christians — if they were aware of the method. Most of the time — in fact, nearly all of the time — the Christians — or even the cops, for that matter — never see it. And even if they do, just by accident, it seems so ludicrous, so outrageous, and so like a bad horror movie that they just brush it off. You see what I mean? So, your problem here is deciding if what you've stumbled on ... along with the killing of Borgnine ... is a ludicrous coincidence that should be ignored to avoid making a complete ass of yourself ...” He grinned. " ... or the real thing. The real ... deadly ... fucking ... thing. Whether real Satanists, or just using Satanists."

  After a long moment, as another Gator Tator crunched noisily between Garner's teeth, Coll said, "But you still haven't answered my question, Garner. What do you think!"

  "You mean, what's my personal opinion? My gut reaction?"

  "Yes."

  Garner bit into his sandwich and chewed slowly as his eyes moved from Coll to Bent and back again ... back and forth. Then, finally, he said, "My opinion is that you two should take an extended vacation to a tropical island. And when you're finished, you should move to a distant state. Or, better yet, a distant country. In other words, I think you guys should get the hell out of Dodge ...”

  PART EIGHT

  A Battle on the Horizon

  1

  "Are you trying to tell me that ... our son has buh-been taken from us by, by ... Satanists?" Ethan Walker squinted as he hissed the last word with distaste, his eyes moving back and forth between Bent and Coll, who sat across from him on the sofa.

  Loraina was outside playing with Anice — since Samuel's disappearance, the Walkers did not let their little girl out of sight for a moment — and in the heavy silence that followed Ethan's question, the three men could hear Loraina and Anice laughing in the front yard.

  "Is that what you're saying?" Ethan asked before either of them could respond.

  "No, not at all, Ethan," Bent said, leaning forward. With an elbow on each knee, he clutched his hands together, not realizing he was clutching them so tightly that his knuckles had turned the color of sour milk. "We're not saying anything, really. We just think that maybe ... well, it could possibly be ...” He glanced nervously at Coll. " ... a possibility."

  "You think it's a possibility because one of the neighbors gave you a sketchy account of a car with an upside-down cross hanging from the mirror, is that right?"

  "Well, uh, that was our first lead. But there's been more than that." Bent reached down, opened his bag, and removed the two maps, which he and Coll had stapled together after carefully cutting off their borders. With Coll's help, he spread it out on the coffee table so that it would be upside down to Ethan. "What do you see there, Ethan?"

  The pastor got out of his chair and squatted before the coffee table, frowning and squinting as he looked the map over.

  "A bunch of dots on a map," he replied.

  "Look closer."

  "Well, it's a map with a bunch of dots, of course, a map of the Bay — " He froze. His eyes widened slowly. He placed both hands on the edge of the coffee table and leaned forward heavily. "Oh, dear god. It's a ... a cross ... almost. But ... well, what is it?"

  Bent explained the significance of the dots on the map
and where he'd gotten the information. Then he said, "But you're looking at it upside down."

  "What?" Ethan asked, looking at him.

  "It's upside down. Come over here."

  Ethan did. His right hand moved slowly up to his mouth and pressed hard over it as he lowered himself onto the sofa, gawking at the map. "Oh, lord. Oh, dear lord, what's happening here? What ... is ... happening here?" He stared at the map for a long time, hand still over his mouth, eyes wide. Then he dropped his hand, looked up at Bent, and asked hoarsely, "You've shown this to the police?"

  Bent took in a deep breath. "Well ... no. No, I haven't. Not this, exactly. But I have gone to the police. I went to them with the story your neighbor told me. They didn't want to talk to me, though. Because I'm ... you know, I'm a reporter for the Inquisitor. They don't seem to have much respect for tabloids."

  "You mean to tell me you went to them with information that might've shed some light on my son's disappearance and they ... thuh-they didn't want to listen!" Ethan's lips were trembling and his fists were clenched as he stood slowly beside Bent.

  "Believe me, Ethan, I tried my best, they just didn't — "

  "Oh, don't worry, Bent," he said very quietly. "I'm not blaming you. They're the police. It's their job to take information on a case when it's offered, even if it's crazy information."

  "I know, I know, but the police chief kicked me out of the station. Actually, he shouted me out. And I think he had good reason."

  "Oh, really? He did this after you told him why you were there?"

  "Yes, that's right."

  "Was this Chief Cotchell? Bill Cotchell?"

  Bent nodded.

  Ethan pressed his lips together hard and Bill thought that if he were to open them, a stream of profanity would flow from his mouth. Then, after a long moment, his face, and his fists, relaxed. He closed his eyes and muttered, very quietly, "Thank you, lord, for the little pat on the back." Then he turned to Bent and said, "I think we should pay a little visit to Chief Cotchell. All of us. I can take you in my car." He turned away from them and started toward the hall closet, then spun around and said quietly, "And bring that map ...”