The Post

by Kevin A. Muñoz

  Braithwaite’s mouth twists into a brief scowl at Luther’s phrasing. Braithwaite is as good a mechanic as her partner. She turns back, focusing on the empty gas station market, but she doesn’t move. Her jaw clenches, releases, and she says, “It has to be quick.”

  The biodiesel farmer’s distraction doesn’t abate after we’ve gone into her lab for privacy. My insistence catches her attention, briefly, but once inside her lab she starts pacing back and forth along the narrow center aisle.

  “You have a shortwave radio,” I begin, hoping to give some context to my questions.

  “It’s not mine,” Braithwaite interrupts. “It’s Ernesto’s. He knows how to fix it. I don’t.”

  “You and Ernesto have a shortwave radio,” I amend, remembering that Braithwaite prefers precision. “I don’t care whose it is. That’s not important. Focus, Belinda.” I allow a long breath to temper my impatience, then continue, “How many people have access to it? Who uses it?”

  “No one,” she says with a scoff. “I mean, we’re in contact with the trading network. But no one else uses it. And it stays in the lab. The only people who come in here are the people we let in. But what does that have to do with anything?”

  Luther, moving in from the door to stand between us, rests a hand on Braithwaite’s shoulder, as if to calm her down. “You didn’t let Owen use it, did you? He didn’t know about it, right?”

  Braithwaite seems to startle at the questions. “What? No, of course not. It’s in a cabinet. Over there.” She points to a sturdy wooden armoire behind me, at the very end of the lab, against the wall. “It’s not locked, obviously, but as you can see—”

  “You wouldn’t know it was there if you didn’t already know it was there,” I say, nodding. “How is it powered? Is it on a generator? Or solar?”

  “It has to be solar,” Braithwaite says, less agitated. “We don’t know when to expect transmissions, so it has to be on all the time. A generator would waste fuel. It’s wired to a panel on the roof of the lab. The cable goes out the back and up. You can see it there, in the gap between the cabinet and the ceiling.” She gestures dismissively.

  “Then it’s not completely hidden. Someone could have found it if they’d been looking.”

  “Why would he be looking?” Braithwaite asks. Her agitation has risen again as quickly as it sank, and she is resting a hand on the door handle as if to tell me that her time is increasingly precious.

  “Owen was here for a week before he died,” I explain, “and in that time it would have been easy for him to learn there was a radio in the Little Five, and who had it. We all know it’s here, in the lab, if not in that cabinet. There’s no secret about it. If he wanted to transmit a message, he would have to get in here.” Now it’s my turn to gesture dismissively, at Braithwaite. “It’s also no secret that you take lovers. That was his way in. And we’re all friends here. We’ve all gotten used to leaving our doors open at night, as the saying goes. You keep the lab locked to the outside, but it never occurred to you to make sure he was outside before you left for the night.”

  “It was twenty minutes, at the most!” Braithwaite says abruptly.

  “That’s more than enough time,” I say. “Owen found the transmitter, used it, and then went back to his apartment. And after that, he came looking for me. Now, I don’t know what he was planning to tell me, but I’m guessing it had something to do with this.”

  I brandish the ciphered pages, which seem to catch Braithwaite’s attention the way laser pointers used to catch cats.

  “What?” she says. “No. I don’t know anything about that.”

  The tone of her voice, previously so dismissive, has shifted to something resembling defeat. And my heart sinks as the possibility I had so feared crumbles into dust. Because it is eminently clear that Belinda Braithwaite is lying.

  “Belinda. No.” Luther is as surprised as I am.

  “These weren’t Owen’s papers, were they?” Perhaps I can salvage this; perhaps it isn’t worse than I feared. Braithwaite may not have had anything to do with the man’s death, even if she was keeping secrets that the stranger uncovered. Or if she was involved, there may have been justification. Perhaps he was threatening her. I want to believe it. Not only for myself, but for the Little Five as well. We need her.

  And yet—Abigail. What possible reason could she have for hurting Abigail?

  “These weren’t Owen's papers,” I repeat. “They’re yours. You’ve been sending encrypted shortwave transmissions, like a numbers station. He must have known that there was a station here in the Little Five, and he tracked it to you. He found the radio. He found this key, this one-time pad.”

  “That’s not a key. I mean, it’s not what you think,” Braithwaite says, stepping back. As she shifts I realize I’ve been getting closer, my fingers tightening into fists.

  “What do I think?” I blurt out, feeling my face get hot. Anger masks the sting of her betrayal. It takes all of my effort not to shake her. “I don’t know what the fuck is going on here. Did you kill him, Belinda? Did you kill Abigail?”

  “No!” she shouts back, gripping the door handle more tightly. “I did not kill Owen. I did not kill the girl. I would never do that! Sam. Jesus! I would never do that. You don’t understand. You can’t—Look. I have to go. It’s important.” She wants to flee. I can see it in her eyes and in the tension of her wrist. But she is looking at the gun in my holster. The gun I’ve never used on a rational human being.

  Her glance works like a slap. She is afraid of me. Maybe she should be; maybe she deserves it. But I don’t like the way it makes me feel. I give her a few inches of space. I tell Luther, “Open the cabinet. See if there are any more papers there. Anything else encrypted.”

  I can hear Luther moving behind me. Pulling at a drawer that must be locked for all the racket it’s making. “Tell me what’s going on,” I say to Braithwaite.

  “I can’t,” Braithwaite says, her tone approaching a whine. Her eyes well up, and her forehead creases with tension. “I swear, Sam, I can’t. But I have to go. Please. It’s important.”

  Luther pounds a fist against the armoire. “There’s a locked drawer, Chief.”

  “Where is the key?” I demand.

  “I can stop it if you let me go,” pleads Braithwaite.

  “Stop what?”

  I hear three engines come to life outside: the bus and trucks belonging to the trading group from Clarke County.

  “No,” Braithwaite wails. “No, no, no. No!” As she shouts the last word, Braithwaite yanks hard on the door handle and propels herself down the stairs and across the lot.

  After recovering from my surprise, I follow, with Luther on my heels and reaching to her holster. Braithwaite runs for the lead truck, knocking past Vargas as he looks up from stowing his pile of equipment. I shout for Braithwaite to stop, to explain herself, but she ignores me. She climbs onto the truck’s driver side runner and pounds on the heavy metal door. The truck’s brakes squeal and the vehicle lurches to a halt. The window comes down and Norm Ithering, still in his dark sunglasses, leans out just as I arrive behind Braithwaite.

  “Please, you can’t,” she pleads, most of her breath still gone.

  Mr. Ithering looks back toward Vargas. “Is there something still wrong? I thought we got it fixed.”

  Braithwaite turns away from the door, grabbing my coat. “They’re taking one of the children,” she shouts, directly into my face. “Addie, explain!”

  I look to my deputy. “Do you know something?”

  “No, of course not,” she answers curtly. “She’s raving.”

  Perhaps it’s Luther’s tone, or something else that Braithwaite has just now realized, but the result is the same: she seems to break, going quiet and still. “Check the trucks,” she says. “You have to check the trucks.”

  I want to ask why, to pretend that I can’t already guess. But Abigail was taken from her family, and she wasn’t the only
one. Belinda is afraid that it’s happening again.

  “Mr. Ithering,” I begin, sidestepping Braithwaite and Luther to climb onto the truck’s runner. “I’m sorry to do this to you, but I need to check the trucks, and the bus.”

  Ithering tenses. “She’s gone nuts, Edison. We’re not taking anyone’s children. You know us!”

  I wave over to the people at the tunnel wall, signaling for them to close the gate, and once they begin to comply, Ithering realizes I’m serious.

  He turns off his engine, cranks the truck’s parking brake. “All right. But be quick about it.”

  He comes down from the cab and informs the other drivers that they’re going to be stuck here a little while longer. Soon the street is quiet again, with no rumbling engines to add to our agitation. Some of that rumbling is replaced by complaints from the trading crew, but there is a longstanding rule in the trading network: you obey the laws—and the law—of the communities you enter, or you don’t come back.

  Ithering unlatches the gate of the forward U-Haul and throws it up, letting in the midmorning light to reveal boxes and bags of food and equipment. While Luther keeps watch over Braithwaite, who is now sulking on the curb, Pritch and Kloves inspect every large container in this truck and the one behind. I check the bus and come up as empty as the other two.

  The whole process takes less than fifteen minutes. It would be quicker still, but I insist on at least making a show of thoroughness, no matter how unlikely it is that Braithwaite is telling the truth. At last, I slap the side of Ithering’s cab door, the signal for him to get out of the Little Five. The tunnel wall swings open and the three vehicles depart as quickly as such minor behemoths can.

  The spectacle has gathered a quarter of the community along the sidewalks, some of them here to watch the inspections, but most come to gawk at Belinda Braithwaite. Once my immediate obligation is done, Mayor Weeks strides across the street to me.

  “What the hell is going on?” he asks.

  I glance over at the biodiesel farmer. Vargas is with her now, and the two are in some heated discussion, with Luther nearby. It seems neither of the two cares that the police can hear every word.

  “I’ll know more soon, and I promise I’ll give you a full report. But right now, I think it’s best to get Belinda into the station and start untying this knot.”

  “This is about the strangers,” Weeks says.

  “Yes. But like I said, there’s still more to figure out.”

  I start to turn away, but the mayor touches my shoulder. “You can’t really think Belinda is involved.”

  Throwing my usual familiar rapport with the mayor out the window, I reply, “I’m certain of it, sir. And it goes beyond just Owen and Abigail. But I shouldn’t say more than that for now. When I have something to give the mayor’s office, I will.”

  “This could be a mess, Sam. You know that. Belinda’s not just anyone. You have to be absolutely sure.”

  Aloysius isn’t referring simply to Braithwaite’s status in the Little Five, as if that conferred to her some kind of persuasive power, or meant that the mayor would have to tread lightly. He’s talking about the biodiesel. He’s reminding me that responsibility for dismantling one of our community’s primary resources will fall on my shoulders.

  “I know.”

  DAY TWELVE, 4:00 A.M.

  I spent the next few hours trying to interrogate Braithwaite, but after her initial break, she stopped talking to me. I considered bringing in Vargas to make her use her words, but Luther shook her head and said, “He was only making things worse. He doesn’t know what the fuck is going on, not any more than we do, but I’m pretty sure he believes she did it. He was not being very nice.”

  So I spoke to Vargas alone, then the rest of the power company. I sent Luther to speak to Micah Abraham, who would only have seethed at me. It became clear that none of them were involved in whatever Braithwaite’s been doing. Each one was more horrified than the next. Eventually I came back around to Braithwaite, but she still wasn’t talking. She paced her cell and ignored me even when I felt myself starting to yell.

  By early evening I gave up, took dinner from Regina, and fell asleep at my desk after telling the others to go home. I awoke twice, just long enough to see that Braithwaite was still awake and still pacing back and forth, talking to herself, her bare feet making no sound on the cold concrete floor.

  Unable to sleep a third time, I considered what I knew and what I suspected. Braithwaite must have been the one operating the Little Five numbers station, transmitting the texts that Owen later took from the container lab. To what end, I still couldn’t guess. Then I remembered the map that Phoebe saw and put the two facts together: perhaps it was a map of the receivers—and possibly transmitters?—of the encrypted messages. If that was the case, then it meant Braithwaite was part of a much larger network of numbers stations and, for lack of a better term, “spies.”

  At four o’clock in the morning there is a pounding on the locked front door and an animated shadow on the other side of the frosted glass. I get up with a start, shake free the fugue of my deliberations, and unlock the door. Aloysius and Regina Weeks tumble into the small station, Regina out of breath and Aloysius appearing sterner than usual. Before Regina has a chance to compose herself, the mayor says, “Phoebe hasn’t come home tonight, and her friends haven’t seen her.”

  Now, at last, Braithwaite reacts. She bolts to her feet and grabs the bars in front of her. “No, that’s not possible. You checked the trucks!” She bangs the meat of her palms against the bars, making noise, and I wave a hand at her angrily to shut her up.

  “When did you last see her?” I ask. I reassure myself: the Little Five is too small for anyone to go missing for long. Unless Phoebe went beyond the perimeter, she must be somewhere in the neighborhood, and no one living here is stupid enough to go beyond the perimeter.

  “This morning,” Regina says, trying to push past me to get at Braithwaite. “What did you do?” she howls at Braithwaite. “Where is my daughter?”

  I block Regina from getting to the other woman. “I’ll talk to her,” I say, and my glance at Braithwaite is meant to tell the engineer that I’m not going to let her stay quiet this time. “You two, go wake up Luther, Pritch, and Kloves. Have them rouse the sweep team. We’ll find her. I promise.”

  Regina doesn’t want to leave, but her husband takes her gently by the arm and coaxes her out of the station. I blink away the last of my sleep and go to the cell where Braithwaite is gripping the bars hard enough to whiten her knuckles.

  “I can’t tell you anything,” she says before I open my mouth. “I don’t know anything. I don’t know where she is. It’s the truth.”

  “But you knew she was going to be taken,” I point out.

  “No. Not her specifically. But I was threatened. One of the Clarke people. Randall. He came to the lab, and he knew everything. Of course, he did. He said if you or anyone found out what—” She stops short, releases her grip on the bars. She hugs her chest and takes a step back, as if worried that I might assault her. I realize that my palm is resting on the handle of my belt knife.

  “What did he know, Belinda? What the hell have you been doing, and what did Owen find out?”

  “I relay messages. That’s all. I swear to God. I receive transmissions from one of the other stations and repeat them on a different channel. You have to understand. Sam, they didn’t give me a choice. We needed phenolphthalein. They had it. This was the only way they’d trade.”

  “Who are they?” I ask, setting aside the rest of her explanation for the moment.

  “I don’t know. But they’re in different enclaves, towns, everywhere. The man who came to me at the beginning said he could get phenolphthalein for me. Phenolphthalein and just about anything else I needed. And we needed a lot.” I can see Braithwaite becoming righteously defensive as she talks, her body language shifting. Tension building in her shoulders, but not out of fear. Thi
s is resolve. Justification. “We couldn’t have made the biodiesel farm what it is today without their supplies. You think we got everything by giving them bread? Jesus, Sam. We needed what they were offering, and this was the only way!”

  “You never asked questions. You never wanted to know what you were transmitting. You never considered that they’d have you over a barrel. You’d do anything for the next fix. This never occurred to you?” She is about to reply but I bang my hand against the bars. “Don’t answer that. There isn’t time. You’re going to tell me about Owen and Abigail, and you’re going to be held responsible, but not now. Right now, you’re going to tell me what Randall said.”

  Braithwaite takes a deep breath, exhales it slowly. There is a glistening in her eyes that supports the truthfulness of her remorse—or whatever it is that she is feeling. Even now it is difficult to tell.

  “I told him what happened. With the strangers.” Braithwaite examines the floor. “With Owen and Abigail. He wanted to know what Owen had told. I said I didn’t know. I told him I was sure he’d said nothing. You were lurching around in the dark.” A fleck of spite in her eyes, and a weak tremble of momentary triumph, and she continues. “He said my assurances weren’t good enough. I had to try harder to keep things quiet. He said that if anyone else found out, he was going to select one of the girls. That’s the word he used: ‘select.’ And then he said, ‘You’ll never see her again.’ He told me to think of her as a hostage. Keep it quiet, and she’d be safe. Let it out, and she’d be ‘selected.’ But you figured it out before I could fix things.”

  I resist thinking about that word, “selected,” because I know what it’s likely to mean. It means Abigail. It means abduction and torture and rape. The bite of a hollow-head would be solace, after that.

  Selfishly, I tell myself it isn’t fair. This shouldn’t be my weight to carry. I got out; I got past. Why do I have to be the one to remember the bruises, the split lips, the broken bones? Or the pang of loss, the confusion, the impotent despair? I shouldn’t have to relive all of that. Not here. Not in the dark.