by Zan, Koethi
I gasped. “You don’t do that, do you? Throw them out?”
Another pause. And then, quieter this time, with reluctance, “No. I have them.”
“Maybe he’s crazy, maybe not. But listen, I think I’ve figured something out. I think he is sending messages to you in my letters, and maybe to Christine as well. I think there might be something in his letters to you that I might understand, and vice versa.”
She didn’t answer for a long time, but I knew her well enough to know I should wait. She was thinking.
“And how is this going to help us, Sarah? Do you think he’s letting us each know how special we are to him? How much he still loves us? Do you think he’s going to give us some key to put him in jail longer? He is many things, Sarah, but he is not stupid.”
“No, he’s not stupid. But he likes to take risks. He likes games, and he might want to give us a fair hand. It would give him a lot of pleasure to think he was telling us something meaningful and we were too stupid to figure it out.”
I could sense her mulling this over in the quiet over the line. “You have a point. So what do we do? Send each other our letters?”
I took a deep breath. “I think it’s more complicated than that. I think … I think we need to meet.”
“That seems indescribably unnecessary.” Her tone was icy. I could hear her hatred loud and clear.
“Listen, Tracy, I’ll be back in New York in two days. Can you drive down and meet me there? I’m sure you have a lot going on right now with your journal and all that, but I don’t think we have time to waste. What is your cell number? I can text you when I get in, and we can meet.”
“I’ll think about it,” she replied. And then the line went dead.
CHAPTER 9
After ordering in herbal tea from room service to recover from my contact with Tracy, I drove back out to Keeler, to pay a visit to Noah Philben at his new office. As a rule, I didn’t like people with radical ideas, and I had, up until this point, structured my entire life to avoid them. Fanatics, mystics, and extremists all tended toward irrational and unexpected action. Statistics could not protect you from that.
I wanted people to fit squarely within their appropriately delineated demographic category: age, education, income level. These facts should have predictive value, and when they didn’t, my ability to interpret and relate to people went askew. As Jennifer and I would always say, at that point, anything can happen, and there were too many categories of “anything” I didn’t like.
Even though the tank of my rental car was not even half empty, I stopped at a gas station on the way down, taking advantage of what appeared to be an unusually pristine BP right outside of town. I noticed with no small satisfaction that the attendant was locked away from me behind unbreakable plexiglass. If only everyone could be like that.
I found the shopping center with no trouble and pulled into a parking space close to the grocery store, where a buzz of shoppers passed in and out, their carts rattling loudly as they crossed the uneven pavement. I sat in the car for a minute, wondering what the hell I was doing here.
I reached into my bag and pulled out my cell phone, checking it out of nervous habit. It was comforting to see the fully charged battery icon and the five signal bars radiating out at me. My shoulders dropped half an inch at that, and I breathed in deeply.
As I considered my next task, however, I felt the urge to bolt, to race back to New York and forget this whole escapade. I could simply testify, the way Jim wanted me to. No way would they let Jack Derber out of jail—the parole hearing was surely just the State of Oregon going through the motions of its administrative process, wasn’t it? I didn’t need to do this.
But was there a chance?
From what I knew of prison terms, it could happen. The criminal justice system did not dole out that justice fairly and evenly, in proportion to the crimes in question. Someone could spend their whole life in jail over possession of a gram of cocaine, but rapists, kidnappers, and child molesters could end up hardly serving any time at all. Ten years might satisfy the State of Oregon after all. Release was possible, especially if they fell for a religious conversion story, and I knew his behavior in prison had been, naturally, impeccable. I had heard he was even teaching a course in there to the other inmates. Fuck. I had to talk to Noah Philben.
The building looked almost inviting, considering what I’d been expecting anyway. It was still painted in bright colors, with a giant rainbow mural covering the front wall, a relic of its community-center past. Through the glass-fronted door, I could see an office tucked inside to my left. The administrative staff, a young man and woman, each of whom looked to be no more than twenty-five, sat busily sorting papers. They were clean-cut and eager. This didn’t seem like a cult at all. More like a YMCA. I felt my anxiety lifting.
Bracing myself, I pulled open the door and walked over to the office. The young man looked up at me and smiled. He seemed perfectly normal, except for a glint of heightened zeal in his eyes that made me a little uncomfortable. I hesitated.
“Welcome to the Church of the Holy Spirit. How can I help you?” he said brightly. Too brightly.
I took a deep breath and explained, as politely as possible, that I wanted to talk to Noah Philben. The boy frowned and furrowed his brows, seeming unsure of what to do. I guessed Noah Philben didn’t get a lot of visitors.
“Not sure he’s in yet. Um, hold on just a minute.” He left me alone with the girl. She smiled at me too, a little less forthrightly than the boy. Then, casting her eyes back down, she returned to her paper shuffling in silence. I knew any normal person would have initiated small talk, said hello, at least brought up the weather, but I didn’t know how to do such things anymore. So I just stood there under the bad fluorescent lighting, looking around the room awkwardly.
A few minutes passed before the boy returned, now with a tall man in what must have been his fifties following behind. This had to be Noah Philben, for he was wearing not only a clerical collar but also a priestly black robe that extended down to his ankles. His hair, a scraggly blond fading to gray, just touched his shoulders. His eyes were a piercing blue. His face was perfectly controlled as he came toward me, a mask of impersonal calm.
As he passed the office, however, a lopsided grin broke out on his face when he greeted the girl behind the counter. She looked away shyly, appearing to be uncomfortable with this attention. A cold shiver went down my back. Maximum creepy, I thought to myself, but I forced my own smile as he approached. I tried to take a step toward him, but my legs protested by going wobbly on me.
Just at the moment he reached me, my phone started beeping. Probably Dr. Simmons, since it was my regular appointment day. I ignored it.
Noah Philben looked down toward my hip pocket, in the direction of the sound.
“You need to answer that?” He grinned that same grin at me.
“No, it’s fine.” I reached into my pocket to shut off the ringer. “Mr. Philben, I—”
“It’s actually Reverend Philben, Miss …” That was clearly my cue, but I stood there for a full three seconds, a little slow on the uptake. He was waiting patiently for me to tell him why I was there.
“I’m Caroline Morrow,” I finally forced out. “And I’m so glad you’re here. I don’t want to disturb your day, but I’m looking for someone, an old friend. Sylvia Dunham? I understand she is a member of your … church.” I looked over at the girl. Her head was still bent down over the mail. The boy was on the phone in the opposite corner. They didn’t appear to be listening.
Noah Philben raised an eyebrow.
“Interesting,” he said as he glanced at the front door, considering my words. “Shall we step into my office?”
He aimed his thumb down the hall, toward a door in back. No way was I stepping into some back office down the hall. Not with this guy. Not with anyone. Anything could happen. I tried to smile sweetly, as I pointed over to a bench in the entry hall.
“Oh, I don’t mean to t
ake up much of your time. Maybe we could talk for just a moment, right over here?”
He shrugged again and lifted his hand toward the bench, “Whatever you say. After you.”
I eased myself slowly onto the seat, never taking my eyes off his face. He remained standing. I immediately regretted sitting, for now he was towering over me. He folded his arms and leaned against the wall, ignoring the bulletin board beside him with the words Come worship with us in stenciled, multicolored construction paper that flickered from the air he had stirred.
“How do you know Ms. Dunham?” he asked, with that slow grin still sliding across his face.
“I knew her growing up, and I’ve been traveling in the area. On business. I heard she was one of your parishioners.”
“Yep,” he stared straight at me. Clearly he wasn’t planning to volunteer anything.
“I’m trying to reach her. She doesn’t seem to be home. I thought maybe someone at her church might know where she is.” Again, my faux casual voice. I could never have been an actress. I could feel a blush running up my throat as I thought how woefully unsuited I was for this task.
Noah leaned forward. I thought for just an instant that I detected a hint of menace in his eyes, though I told myself it was just in my head. The grin was gone now. I leaned back against the hard bench, almost overpowered by the force of his gaze. Then he stood tall and smiled again. I couldn’t tell whether he had noticed the effect he was having on me.
“No idea. Haven’t seen her in a few weeks. It’s not like her to miss … services. Only the Lord knows where she is. But, um … if you hear from her, let me know, all right? I naturally have a great deal of concern for my parishioners, as you say. I’d love to know where she is.” Noah leaned back against the wall again, relaxed and cold as ice.
“Sure, sure, I definitely will. Well, thanks anyway.”
Something about the look in his eyes made my stomach clench up, and a cold sweat break out on my skin. I felt the air start to catch in my chest. Something in my body clicked into automatic gear, something all too familiar. I knew where this was headed, and for some reason I was desperate not to let this man see me panic. Almost involuntarily, I shot up from my position and backed toward the door, reaching into my pocket for my car keys.
I had to blink back tears as I smiled timidly, nodding my thanks and waving a halfhearted good-bye as I pushed open the glass door that led out onto the parking lot. The two young people still didn’t look up. I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination or not, but I thought I heard Noah Philben laugh as I turned and walked away. It was a hard sound. Humorless and raw.
CHAPTER 10
I tried to sleep on the plane back home to stave off a panic attack about flying, but instead I kept going over the Sylvia Dunham disappearance in my head. I wondered if I should talk to Jim, let him take over and figure out where she was. But I knew that legally there wouldn’t be any cause for them to look unless someone who was legitimately in her life reported her missing. She could just be out of town, after all.
I had never been happier to see my building, after a six-block walk from the subway. I lugged my suitcase across the threshold and felt my whole body begin to relax. It was only at that moment that I realized how much the stress of this search was wearing on me.
Then I noticed Bob. He was gesticulating to me furiously. He put his finger to his lips and pointed to the back of a woman standing in the corner with a cell phone to her ear. Before I could comprehend what Bob was trying to tell me, she turned around and saw me.
“Sarah?” she said, hesitating as she clicked her cell phone off. I could tell Bob was puzzled by the name.
“Tracy! You came,” I replied, stunned.
Bob looked at me, then her, unable to disguise his shock. I’d lived in the building for six years and never had had any visitors other than my parents, my shrink, and Jim McCordy. And here, standing in the lobby of the building, was a petite punk rocker, with dyed black hair streaked with hot pink, a leather-studded jacket, black tights, and black lace-up boots, with tattoos and piercings all over her face. And I knew her.
Seeing Tracy for the first time in a decade made everything come back to me at once. I had to lean against the wall for support. A flood of images flashed in my mind. Tracy’s eyes, as she hunched in the corner, recovering from pain. Tracy’s eyes, as she laughed quietly during those long hours when we had no one but each other to stimulate and entertain us, when our conversations were the only lifeline to the real world, and we were the only things keeping each other from losing our minds. And then the final image, as always when I thought of her, of Tracy’s eyes gleaming with rage when she found out what I’d done.
Was that look there in her eyes now, lost somewhere behind her glassy stare of incomprehension? I imagined she was struggling with her own memories as well, as we stood there in the polished lobby, on a bright May day, in the middle of millions of people oblivious to the monumental event occurring there. In my head, I ran the numbers on how many other great and meaningful reunions were taking place in the city at the same moment. But could anything else matter quite as much?
“Sarah,” she finally said again, her eyes slitting, with what kind of energy I could not tell.
I walked up just close enough, but not too close, to her so that Bob couldn’t overhear, and said quietly, “Caroline. I’m Caroline now.”
Tracy shrugged, threw her cell phone into her bag, and said, as if there were nothing extraordinary going on, “So can we go up?” She tilted her head toward the elevator.
I could sense Bob approaching on my left, ready to take a stand to protect me from what he clearly deemed to be some criminal element. He’d come out from behind the desk braced for battle.
“It’s all right, Bob. She’s an … old friend.” I stammered out the word and, without looking, could feel Tracy wince. I led the way to the elevator rather reluctantly. I’d hoped to meet somewhere on neutral ground, but it wasn’t working out that way. Bob returned to his post, but I could tell he was not comfortable with the situation. And neither was I.
We stood in silence listening to the old mechanism clink as we slowly rose to the eleventh floor, then Tracy said very quietly, almost to herself I thought at first, “I brought them.”
I knew exactly what she meant and felt a quick, sharp pang of regret for asking for them in the first place.
When we reached my apartment, Tracy walked around, looking at everything. Whether she liked it or not, I couldn’t tell. She smiled slightly as she dumped her bag on my coffee table.
“Overcompensating much?” she said with a smirk. Then she relented and added without looking at me, “Really it’s very nice, Sarah. Very … calming.”
Without sitting down, I gave her a quick recap of my trip to Oregon and my search for Sylvia. I skipped the fact that it had been my first trip anywhere in years and that I had specifically vowed never to return to that state.
Tracy took it all in stride, as usual. She clearly thought I was being overly dramatic about Sylvia’s disappearance.
“She’s probably on a trip,” she said as soon as I’d finished. “And if you really think she’s missing, isn’t the correct course of action to go straight to the police?”
“I’m not quite ready to trust my stellar investigative instincts yet, I suppose,” I replied.
Tracy smiled a little at that.
We set up in my dining room, each of us spreading out our letters in chronological order on the table. In each instance, the postmarks were only a few days apart. I brought out two empty notebooks and brand-new Uniball Deluxe pens. We sat down and pored over the pages.
At first I was disoriented by the sea of black ink swirling in my pristine white world, but I forced myself to concentrate. Only thinking can save us, I thought automatically, my mantra from the past.
I wrote out columns in my notebook, one for each of us, and we began to categorize the references as best we could. Under Tracy’s name I wrote, in the careful blo
ck letters Jennifer had always used in those other notebooks, NEW ORLEANS, COSTUMES, LAKE. She glanced over at the page and quickly jerked her head away. I figured the word lake must have brought back some painful memories.
I carefully thumbed through Tracy’s letters, terrified at what I might find but eager as well. Finally, I came across what was clearly a reference to Jennifer and me: “A crash and then drowning, fast, in a sea of numbers.” Under my name I carefully set the words CRASH and SEA OF NUMBERS. Of course. The car accident that killed Jennifer’s mother. The journals. He had figured out so much, so easily, while we were his prisoners.
We studied the letters for nearly an hour, until my columns were two pages for each of us, when Tracy finally leaned back and sighed. She looked me in the eye, but without menace this time.
“They make no sense whatsoever. I mean, yes, the letters are about us. Yes, he likes to torment us with how much he knows. It seems like he’s spending a lot of time in the slammer rehashing old memories for the thrill. But in terms of interpretive value, I’m going to have to give this a zero.”
“It’s a puzzle,” I said. “It’s some sort of word puzzle. I know we can break it, if we just use logic. If we just get these ideas organized. If we just—”
“—do the math?” Tracy interrupted with frustration. “Do you think that can really help us? You think all of life can be sorted and arranged and comprehended? That the whole universe is organized in accordance with some inner logic, and with enough statistical analysis, we can solve some sort of philosophical algorithm? Life doesn’t work that way, Sarah. I thought you’d learned that already. If three years in a dungeon didn’t teach you that, then nothing I can say will. Look what he did to us. Our heads are the puzzle, not these letters. He spent years mixing us up, and now you think you can overcome that, and apply the methods you used as a teenager to decode some hidden message? You think there’s invisible ink in there too?” She got up and stormed into my kitchen. I followed.