Cantina Valley (A Ben Adler Mystery Book 1) (14 page)

“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.”

“True.
 
I’m taking care of the IRS.
 
I’m trading my investigative skills to that Portland lawyer for her getting them to take a hike.”

Jim laughed.
 
“They’ll probably want a cut of that.
 
But you said you found this McGuffin fellow, right?”

“Sort of.
 
But I’ll still want to talk with the man.”
 
Now, the real reason he had come to talk with his neighbor.
 
“Before I go, what can you tell me about my father and his short wave radio?”

“What do you want to know?” Jim asked.
 
“We all used to use them to communicate back in the day.”

“Just after the carrier pigeon?”

“I always told your daddy he didn’t whip your ass enough.”

It had been enough.
 
“Did you ever run across anything strange?”

Jim laughed out loud.
 
“Are you kidding me, Ben.
 
The Ham radio is run by some of the craziest people in America.
 
The world, actually.
 
The government tried to shut down the whole shebang many times.
 
But the Ham guys were like whack a mole.
 
They’d keep reinventing themselves and shifting frequencies faster than some change their underwear.
 
It was like the old west.
 
I don’t know how many still use the short wave.
 
Mine is collecting dust in the garage.
 
Why do you ask?”