Cantina Valley (A Ben Adler Mystery Book 1) Page 8

  The priest continued to plead with the parishioners as they checked out the photo, and Lester guessed the padre was mentioning how this was not an immigration issue.

  While the priest collected the photos, Lester noticed a younger woman get up from her chair and move to the outer hall.

  Father Murphy came back to Lester and returned his photos. “I’m sorry, Lester. No luck.”

  “That’s all right, Father. It was a long shot. By the way, you should tell your parishioners that the roads are starting to ice up. You might want to cut this Bingo short.”

  “Thank you, Lester. I will. And good luck with your investigation.”

  Before leaving, Lester handed the priest his card. “In case someone suddenly remembers something.”

  Father Murphy nodded.

  Lester wandered quickly toward the outer hall, hoping to catch the younger woman who had left suspiciously. But he didn’t have to go far. She was waiting for him out there, her arms over her chest in a self comforting gesture. She was perhaps thirty—short and a bit pudgy.

  “Did you get a chance to look at the photo?” Lester asked the woman.

  She nodded quickly, her eyes shifting nervously toward the Bingo hall.

  “Do you know this man?”

  She still said nothing.

  “You look frightened,” he said. “Are you all right?”

  A tear streaked her right cheek.

  “You know this man,” Lester said. “Who is it?”

  After a long delay, she finally said, “My brother.”

  13

  Ben woke up before light, which would probably never come completely on this Sunday. The rain had turned from freezing to a light, warm drizzle, making tree branches spring back from their load of ice with resounding snaps and cracks. The ground everywhere was still slippery from ice and mud. He finished his chores feeding the animals, milking his cows and collecting eggs, before heading back into his house.

  He stoked the fire before going into the third bedroom in his house. This room was mostly used for storage now, but it also contained a large desk in front of one window with his radio equipment. His parents had been short wave radio enthusiasts, keeping track of friends across the country. Most of these friends they had never met in person, but they were more real than most found on social media in current times.

  With large headphones over his ears, Ben cycled through the chatter trying to find out how the ice had affected people locally. For now he simply listened. There were a lot of reports of downed trees and icy roads. Most concluded everyone should stay put. The power was down in a lot of areas. Of course that didn’t impact Ben, since he ran power off the grid. In fact, most on the short wave had backup power if they weren’t entirely off the grid like Ben. Soon he became engrossed by a series of conversations that made little or no sense. It reminded him of something he had learned about in his military training.

  Suddenly, he was startled with a tap on the shoulder. Ben turned and saw Maggi behind him. She was wearing only the old Air Force T-shirt he had given her to sleep in the night before. He pulled his headphones to his neck, but could still hear some of the chatter.

  “Good morning,” Ben said. “I hope you slept all right.”

  “I did,” Maggi said, almost in a whisper. “It’s so quiet out here.”

  “The winds picked up for a while after midnight,” Ben said. “A lot of trees are down in the area.”

  “Is that what the radio said?”

  “These are people all over the area giving first-hand accounts,” he said. “Much more accurate than a computer model.”

  “Short wave? I didn’t realize people still used those.”

  “Mostly in the country. But I just got reports from a few in the Portland area. And you don’t have to whisper. Sonya is gone.”

  “This early?”

  “She’ll be back soon. She went for a run.”

  “With this ice?”

  “I know. I told her not to go, but she’s pretty dedicated. She’s done a number of marathons.”

  “How far will she run?”

  “Five to ten miles, depending on the road conditions.”

  Maggi shook her head. “That’s not my thing. Good for her, though.” She paused, considering her words. “How long have you two been together?”

  “We’re not. Not really. She keeps reminding me that we’re not exclusive.”

  “Do you want it to be?”

  That was a damn good question. One he’d been asking himself for weeks. “I don’t know. I’ve been alone for so long that I’m not sure anyone would want me fulltime.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true.”

  Ben heard something over his headset, so he put a finger up and listened in on the conversation. Then he shook his head and pulled the headphones down to his neck again.

  “Everything all right?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m hearing some strange things over the waves.”

  “Like what?”

  “Coded messages.”

  “That’s not normal, right?”

  “Well, throughout history there have been clandestine stations with folks broadcasting without license or authorization. Many people off the grid now do the same thing. The off-the-grid folks usually don’t want the government to know they exist. These messages are coming from a frequency that was saved by my father. But he didn’t leave me a guide book to say where these people were located. I guess he didn’t want anything written down.”

  “What do you think it might be?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s a conversation that most people can’t pick up. You have to know what you’re doing to find it. I just lucked on to it based on my father’s presets. It might be nothing.” But it might be something, he thought. Since one of the voices sounded familiar.

  “Do you mind if I take a shower?”

  “Go for it.”

  “It’s too bad Sonya is coming back or you could join me.” With that, she turned and left him. As she turned, the T-shirt floated up, exposing the lower part of her bare butt.

  Okay, he thought. How in the hell would he handle this? He pulled off the headset and turned off the short wave. By now he could hear the shower running, and he imagined the naked body of Maggi McGuffin rubbing soap over soft, porcelain skin. She didn’t have the sinewy, lithe type of body like Sonya, but that was not a bad thing. Maggi had not run her breasts into submission.

  Ben wandered into his living room and added another small log to the fire.

  The front door opened and Sonya came in, a smile on her face. Running brought a high to her disposition. She didn’t just do it for her body, but also for her mind and soul.

  “You survived,” Ben said.

  “Barely,” she said, taking off her running shoes. “It was treacherous.” She stepped over to him, her feet leaving prints from the moisture on his hardwood floors. Sonya kissed him quickly on the lips. “I need a shower.”

  “Maggi is in the back shower, but we have no shortage of water.”

  “But you know how I like to share the shower.” She gave him a wry grin.

  “Go for it.”

  “Seriously?”

  He thought she was just toying with him. But now he wasn’t entirely sure. He simply shrugged and watched as she started down the hallway. Instead of continuing to the back shower, she turned into the master bedroom. She left the door open as she stripped down naked. Then she smiled and went into the en suite bathroom.

  Ben went into the kitchen to figure out breakfast options. Sonya ate just about anything, but he wasn’t sure about Maggi. Regardless, he put a slab of bacon in a cast iron pan and started to heat it. Then he started the coffee pot.

  Moments later and Maggi came down the hall wearing the clothes from the day before. Her hair was still damp and she wore no makeup. But Ben didn’t think she needed any.

  “I didn’t bring any extra clothes,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting to stay.”

&
nbsp; “You’re fine,” he said. “Coffee is on. Do you like bacon?”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “More than a billion Muslims.”

  “Their loss. More for us.”

  “Great.” Ben used a fork to turn the bacon.

  “I hear another shower. Sonya got back?”

  “Yeah. She said the roads were crazy. You’ll have to wait a while before heading back to Portland.”

  “You keep trying to get rid of me.”

  He smiled and shook his head. “Not at all. I like your company. I just figured you might have things to do before work tomorrow. Also, maybe your brother tried to call you.”

  “I didn’t even think about that,” Maggi said. “Am I crazy, or did I hear Italian last night?”

  “Sonya is fluent in three of the romance languages,” he explained.

  “Yeah, it sounded like she was very passionate about it.” Maggi smiled and turned her head toward Ben’s bedroom.

  Just then Sonya came from the shower wearing a set of Ben’s tight silk long underwear tops and bottoms. Despite their flexibility, they were a little baggy on her.

  “Nice look,” Ben said.

  “Just temporary,” Sonya said. “I have to get going. I’m meeting my mother for mass. Do you have any eggs to go with that bacon?”

  “Coming up,” he said.

  The two women drank coffee and ate bacon while Ben cooked them fresh eggs gathered that morning. When they were done, Sonya changed quickly and headed out the door. But first she gave Maggi a hug and whispered something in her ear, which seemed to shock the attorney.

  Ben sipped on his coffee and said to Maggi, “I hope she didn’t offend you.”

  “Not at all,” Maggi said. “She told me she would understand if I wanted to sleep with you.”

  “I feel so cheap,” he said.

  “She left before I could tell her that I didn’t need her permission,” Maggi said.

  “Sonya is an interesting woman. She goes to the Catholic church religiously.”

  “Is there any other way?”

  “In Europe I go architecturally.”

  “You’re not a believer?”

  “I believe that Sonya believes,” he said. “I’m just not sure. I’m not sure how someone can blindly believe in something they can’t see. Something they can’t confirm. And it bothers me that I don’t have this faith. I would certainly like to believe. What about you?”

  “I am a firm believer that Jesus Christ died for all of us,” she said.

  “That’s great, Maggi. I hope you don’t think less of me for not fully committing.”

  “I believe you’re a good man, Ben. And that’s all that God would ask of his children.”

  14

  After Maggi left for Portland, Ben hung around the house the rest of the morning, trying his best to understand his relationship with Sonya and his new friendship with Maggi McGuffin. He liked the both of them a lot. Maybe that was why he had never married. Part of the reason, he guessed. That and the fact that he had been constantly on the go with the Air Force for over 20 years. It would have been nearly impossible to establish and maintain a relationship under those circumstances.

  He also got back on the short wave radio, but the conversation he had experienced earlier in the morning was no longer there.

  So, just after noon, he got in his truck and drove down the road to his closest neighbor’s house. Jim Erickson, the man with the seemingly flammable bovines, had owned his property longer than anyone in the Cantina Valley. He was like the unofficial keeper of the oral tradition. But Jim was also very religious, so Ben had to wait for the man and his wife to get back from church.

  Jim answered the door still wearing his best western attire, right down to his shiny cowboy boots—not those he wore around the ranch.

  Ben came in and stood at the tiled entryway. “What brings you by on a Sunday?” Jim asked.

  “I came to see if you figured out why your cattle keep on bursting to flames.”

  “No word yet,” Jim said. “The folks at Oregon State are still trying to find a clue.”

  “It could be as simple as punk kids with a gallon of gas and a match.”

  “True. But why would they do that?” Jim hesitated. “Would you like to come in for coffee?”

  “No, thanks, Jim. I’ve reached my limit for the morning.”

  “I was out on the road this morning cutting some fallen trees and waved at Sonya on her way from your place,” Jim said. “I guess she got stuck out there with the bad weather.”

  If Jim saw Sonya, then he must have also seen Maggi drive by. Better to preempt him. “Yeah, and Maggi also.”

  “Maggi?”

  “The black BMW you told me about the other day,” Ben explained. “She’s a lawyer from Portland who hired me to find her brother.”

  “Oh. I thought maybe you were one of those swingers.”

  Ben didn’t want to explain the true nature of swinging to Jim. Instead, he simply laughed and said, “Not likely, Jim.” He pulled out the picture of Tavis McGuffin and showed it to his neighbor. “Have you seen this guy around?”

  Jim looked carefully and shook his head. “No. That’s her brother?”

  “Yeah. We found his truck at the Compound.” This was the real reason for Ben’s visit. Jim Erickson knew more about the Compound than anyone else in the area, including the sheriff’s department. “Do you know anything about the new residents there?”

  Jim hesitated while he took off his church cowboy boots. Finally, he said, “I don’t know much, Ben. But I’ve heard they’re trying to go off the grid like you.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Scuttlebutt from some of the suppliers around here. Not much happens without the old folks hearing about it.”

  Good point. “Maybe I need that cup of coffee. Where’s your better half?”

  “She’s over at Lori’s place hanging out with the grandkids.”

  Lori was one of his daughters. Jim and his wife had wanted Ben to marry the girl, but she was five years his junior, which put Lori in seventh grade when Ben joined the Air Force. But Ben had to admit he had been interested when he came home on leave later in his career. Now Lori was married to a nice farmer and they had three kids. They were also more religious than her parents. She home schooled her kids, which probably kept her quite busy.

  The two of them finally sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee. Ben had more on his mind than just the Compound. But he started there before moving on.

  “The Compound,” Ben started. “I talked with Kevin Engel. I’m guessing you knew he took over the place.”

  Jim nodded agreement. “I talked with Kevin about two weeks ago. He’s nothing like his parents.”

  “He’s military like us.”

  Jim Erickson had served in the Navy during the Vietnam War. He had survived one of the most horrific tragedies in Naval history, when a fire and explosion broke out on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, with 134 sailors dying that day in 1967 on the USS Forrestal. Jim was one of the 161 who had been injured in the tragedy. Jim still had the physical scars on his arms from saving a number of pilots from burning aircraft. Ben could only imagine the psychological scars he held inside him.

  “Did Kevin say what they planned?” Ben asked.

  “Not really. Just said he was retired Army now and was looking for a simple life. Sound familiar?”

  Yeah, it did. Ben guessed a lot of former military were feeling the same way about now.

  “What can you tell me about Marlon Telford?”

  “What about him? He’s a man with too much money and shit for brains.”

  “How did he make his money?”

  Jim sipped his coffee and then said, “You didn’t hear that? He was some kind of biology professor at Oregon. Started a company and sold it for a boatload of money a few years back. Then he bought a section of land and built that monstrosity. I hear he owns an island in Belize also.”

  �
��That must have been one hell of a purchase price,” Ben concluded.

  “Some say it was a billion.”

  Wait. Something wasn’t matching up. “A biology professor who believes in Bigfoot. Isn’t that strange?”

  “Even the strongest skeptics can become believers with proof,” Jim said. “Marlon told me he’s actually encountered Bigfoot on more than one occasion. He says he has DNA proof.”

  “I knew he was an enthusiast, but I had no idea he was that interested.” Now some things made a bit more sense about the man. Ben had gone to the mountains with Marlon a few times since getting out of the Air Force. He thought it was more like a stroll through the forest. But when he thought back, he guessed the man had been quite intense about the subject.

  “Truthfully, I don’t know that much about the man,” Jim concluded. “I do get a lot of questions about you, though.”

  “From who?”

  “Mostly younger ladies. When I say younger, I mean thirties and forties.”

  This was pretext, Ben knew, since Jim Erickson had a daughter a year younger than Lori. This one had been married to a total asshole who had nearly killed his daughter and was now doing time in a Salem prison for that and more. Ben thought Jim might be including his daughter as someone asking about him.

  “Are you talking about Jane?” Ben asked.

  “Not this time. Jane is going out with a nice man from Springfield. He works at one of the mills there, but he treats her right.”

  “He better, right?” Ben heard that Jim had nearly killed Jane’s ex-husband, but decided to hold the man at gunpoint until an ambulance and the police showed up.

  “I’m talking about bigger assholes than Jane’s former husband.” He paused and then said with great disdain, “The IRS.”

  “Why the hell are they talking with you?”

  Jim shrugged. “Something about you owing back taxes. They don’t seem to understand the barter system.”

  “They understand it,” Ben said, “but they just want to take their cut. They’re worse than the Mafia.”

  “I don’t know firsthand, but I’m guessing you can at least reason with the Mafia.”