Into This River I Drown

by TJ Klune

  “Did something happen?”

  “I don’t know. I think so. I think many things happened. I think things are going

  to happen.”

  “Gossip, huh?” He sounds amused.

  “Like wildfire.”

  “Griggs?”

  “Yeah. And the mayor.”

  “Walken,” he growls. “Why am I not surprised?”

  “And Traynor.”

  Silence. It feels thick. Then: “Did you say Traynor? As in Jack Traynor?” This can’t be good. “Yes.”

  A sharp intake of breath. “Oh, Jesus Christ, kid. Have you seen him? How do

  you—No. That can wait. Listen to me. You stay away from Jack Traynor, you hear me? That man is a fucking sociopath. Do you understand? You do nothing with Traynor. You say nothing to Traynor. I’m serious, Benji.”

  My hands feel clammy. I glance down at the marks circling my wrist, the red having faded into blues and purples and greens. “He’s here. In Roseland,” I say faintly.

  Corwin swears. “We were told he was back East. What the hell is he doing in Roseland?” The question seems to be rhetorical, so I don’t answer. I don’t know the answer, regardless. “Listen, Benji,” Corwin says brusquely. “I need to meet with you. Get some information. This isn’t going to be strictly on the record. For now. But if Traynor is involved, this just became a whole new ball game. When can you meet?”

  I try to backpedal. “Uh. Look. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. If he’s as bad as you say, it may not be good for me to be seen talking to you, you know? What if he comes after my family? My mom? The Trio?” I tilt my head back to look at the man behind me, making sure he understands what I’m trying to say. He smiles softly at me and kisses my forehead.

  “You want to know something, Benji?” Corwin asks, his voice going softer. No, I don’t feel that I do. But there’s something in his voice that I can’t deny. “What?”

  “A man called me five years ago. Told me he thought something was going on in

  his town. Thought he should alert the authorities outside of the sheriff’s office.

  Wouldn’t tell me his name. Said he had a family to think about. That he had a son.” “No,” I whisper.

  “When can you meet?”

  “I have a store to run,” I hedge.

  “Get someone else to watch it. This is important.”

  “I….”

  “Benji, your father was trying to do what’s right. Now it’s up to you.” “Fuck,” I say, closing my eyes.

  I ask Mom to watch the store, telling her I need a day off again. She averts her

  eyes from Cal standing right next to me. She says I seem to be taking quite a bit of time off lately. I remind her that out of the last three years, any time off I took was because she forced me to. She huffs a bit at that then acquiesces. She doesn’t know Abe will be paying her a visit at the store to let her know he also knows about Cal, and to try and talk her down from whatever ledge she seems to be standing on. It’s an ambush, I know, but I don’t know how else to go about it. It’s starting to feel like I’m juggling too many things at once, and soon everything will come crashing down.

  I feel absurd heading to the next town over, like I’m some kind of spy on my way to a covert drop. The whole thing is made a tad bit more ridiculous when Cal tells me in a very serious voice that he’s been watching TV in the back office at the store and that anytime spies get together, they wear sunglasses. He asks if I’ll buy him a pair of sunglasses because he still doesn’t have any money. The flush that rises up his neck while he says this is enough to melt the ice that has surrounded my heart since hanging up the phone with Corwin. I take him out and buy him sunglasses. He makes me buy a pair for myself as well, the same as his. We look like idiots.

  Cal drives because I don’t think I can focus enough. Though I do admit to going out of my way to get that damn beaming smile he gives me when he’s tickled to no end. Driving the Ford inspires it. Green clover marshmallows do too. And I seem to be mashed up in there as well, because there are times he’ll look at me and that smile just comes out of nowhere, curving his lips as his eyes grow bright and warm, threatening to knock me on my ass. I thought about asking him to stay in Roseland, but even as the words came out of my mouth, he began to growl at me like some kind of feral cat and I left it alone.

  We are quiet most of the way into Oakland, a small town about halfway between Roseland and Eugene. This leads us down the Old Forest Highway before hitting I10, directly past mile marker seventy-seven. This, of course, causes my pulse to quicken as my heart begins to race. Before we round that last curve, Cal pulls me across the bench seat until I’m nestled up against him with his arm wrapped around my shoulders, my face in his neck. I shake for a time, breathing him in, and when I open my eyes again, we are already on the main highway, sunglasses and all.

  “Benji?” a rough voice says. I turn in the booth I sit in at the local diner, almost

  knocking over the cup of coffee I have yet to touch. Corwin stands next to the booth, his suit slightly wrinkled, his dark hair windblown and all over the place. He looks like I remember, disheveled but still with an air of authority around him. He slides off his mirror shades and I see his eyes are a chocolate brown, but they still look slightly cold. “Agent,” I allow.

  He narrows his eyes as he glances over at Cal. “Who is this?” Cal stands, his stance tense. He is bigger than Corwin, both height-wise and around. “I’m with Benji. He’s mine. You will not hurt him.”

  Corwin doesn’t look intimidated in the slightest. “I’m not here to hurt him,” he says, keeping his voice even. “I’m pretty sure you can stand down, big guy, before you hurt yourself.”

  I groan and pull on Cal’s hand, forcing him to slide into the booth next to me. He crowds me up against the wall of the diner. I take in a deep breath and smell earth. It calms me, at least a bit. He takes my hand and I clutch at him, pulling our joined hands down to my lap so Corwin can’t see. I’m not worried about Corwin’s opinion of us, but we’re in a place that is not our home. I don’t want people to turn hostile.

  Corwin sits across the table, folds his glasses, then puts them in a pocket in his suit jacket. He cracks his knuckles and glances between the two of us before focusing on me. “I was glad to get your call, kid. Didn’t think anything would come of it.”

  “Why did you stop in Roseland that day?” I ask, curious.

  A strange look comes over Corwin’s face. It almost looks like he’s embarrassed. He cracks his knuckles again and sighs. “You know what? I don’t know if I can answer that.”

  My eyes widen as I lean forward. “Like, it’s top secret or something?” I almost consider looking around to see if there are any spies listening in. I still have my sunglasses in my pocket. Should I put them back on?

  He laughs. “No, kid. Not anything like that. It just sounds… weird.” He pauses as a waitress comes over and sets another cup of coffee on the table. He lifts the cup and drinks it black.

  Cal makes a face. “I don’t see how you guys can drink that. I told Benji I wouldn’t like it and I didn’t. It’s gross.” He scowls as he takes a drink of his juice as if to prove his point.

  “It puts hair on your chest,” Corwin tells him.

  “Already got it,” Cal says proudly, and I have to grab his shirt before he pulls it up to show Corwin just how much hair he has. Corwin looks at the two of us like we’re the oddest things he’s laid his eyes on. If only he knew what weird really is, I think. Hell, he’s the FBI. They probably know everything about angels already. And aliens.

  “Why was it weird?” I ask Corwin as Cal grabs my hand again.

  Corwin has to drag his eyes away from Cal. Another one under his spell, I think. “Huh?” Corwin says.

  “Why was it weird?”

  He blushes again. “It sounds a little crazy.”

  “I know crazy, trust me.”

  Cal grins at me.

  Corwin watches me for a moment then
says, “For some reason, I believe that. I, uh… okay. Look. I don’t believe in ghosts. I don’t believe in psychics or mystics or anything weird like that.”

  “There goes my whole notion of the X-Files,” I mutter.

  He ignores me. “But I do believe that people can have hunches, or feelings… you know, that something is… off. I don’t think it’s any kind of sixth sense or anything like that. To be in my line of work, though, you almost have to have it. It’s saved me a few times, whether or not I could admit it at the time.” He looks at me defiantly, like he expects me to make fun of him. I keep my face passive.

  He continues: “I was digging through some old case files, trying to clear off my desk. It’s this whole new initiative going through the Bureau right now: out with the old and in with the new. Cases are being labeled with a priority level so the higherups can figure out how the distribution should work. Cases that are considered dead or cold are obviously given a lower priority than the rest.”

  “What does this have to do with me?” I ask. “Or my father?”

  He glares at me. “I’m getting to that, okay? Look, this isn’t easy for me to tell you, because obviously you don’t know what was going on. So just listen.”

  I nod, gripping Cal’s hand tightly.

  “Everything is digital these days,” Corwin says, “but even five years ago we still had a shitload of paper files. And my desk was buried in them. I had a pile that I considered my “dead” pile, and I planned on taking those all at once to be put into storage. I wasn’t planning on going through them at all. They were dead. They weren’t coming back to life. So… shit.”

  “What?”

  He takes a large sip of coffee and starts wringing his hands. “I was working late one night. I had to stay late because we were planning on going on vacation soon. Me, the wife. The kids. It’d been so long since we’d done anything, and I was feeling a bit guilty. So I was working late, trying to get all this shit done so I could take a week off work without thinking of the pile of paperwork waiting for me when I got back. It was going on ten o’clock. I was the only one left in the office, aside from the cleaning crew. I know this. I know I was the only one left. I was almost done. I was ready to go home, so I picked up the last stack and put it in the cart. There were probably a hundred other files in there. I got up and started pushing it toward the elevator and….” He stops, looking embarrassed again. “I can’t really explain it, okay? I’d gone maybe three steps and it was like… it was like a hand dropped on my shoulder. Out of nowhere.”

  “Out of the blue?” I ask, my hands like ice. I force myself to keep looking at Corwin. I want to turn and look at Cal, to see the look on his face, to start the questions all over again, to ask what he knew, when he knew it, and why he did what he did. This is not coincidence. This is no longer about what’s impossible or improbable.

  There is a pattern, I think. Shapes. A design.

  “Yeah,” Corwin mutters. “Out of the blue. I don’t mind admitting it scared the shit out of me. I spun around, jerking the cart with me, but there was no one there. I told myself I was just tired. That I was imagining things. But you know what? I remember. I remember in that split second feeling fingers curling around my shoulder. I know what I felt. It was there. But no one was behind me.” He looks at me nervously. “I know how this sounds, okay? I know what it sounds like. But I’m not crazy. I’m not.”

  I shake my head, feeling numb. “I don’t think you are. At all.” I hazard a glance at Cal, but his face was impassive. I know he feels my gaze on him, but he’s studiously avoiding it. I try to pull my hand away from his because I feel there’s untruth mixed in with all the rest of him, but he refuses to let me go.

  Corwin doesn’t seem to notice any of this, only looks relieved at my assurances. “It’s just strange to say it out loud,” he admits.

  “These are some strange days,” Cal says, and I have trouble swallowing. It feels like my throat has closed.

  “Yeah,” Corwin says. “But I’m not done. When I saw no one was there, my heart just jumped into my throat. I’d never felt like that before. It was like a small electric current running through my body and I felt… more alive. Like there was something more about me. Something I had never thought of before, and it felt important. I’m not explaining this very well.”

  I’m confused, but I just nod.

  “The point is, I spun around and the entire cart got knocked over. Literally thousands of pages from hundreds of files fell to the floor and scattered everywhere. It would take weeks to put everything back together. But out of all those files that spilled, out of all the pages on the floor, there was still one in the cart, still one thin file intact, not a single page spilled. I hadn’t come across it when clearing out my desk. It must have gotten lost in the shuffle. I hadn’t even thought about it in years.”

  The waitress comes back, refilling the coffee and Cal’s juice. She asks if we want anything to eat and we say no. She stands above us, and I see her glance at Cal’s hand entwined in mine in my lap. She rolls her eyes and walks away.

  “What was in the file, Corwin?” I ask, not sure if I want the answer.

  He looks down at his hands. “Part of my job is to track trends, data analysis involving drug shipments. In early 2006, I began to notice what seemed to be an increase in the distribution and use of methamphetamines. There’d always been concern in Oregon about meth usage, given how much of the area is rural, but it spiked drastically, like either multiple labs and dealers had popped up out of nowhere, or there was a massive new operation that was manufacturing and distributing meth.”

  “I don’t understand,” I say quietly, feeling sick to my stomach. “I’ve never heard of anything like that around here.”

  “Well, you probably wouldn’t, would you?” he counters. “Most organized meth labs aren’t exactly out in the open for everyone to see. This wouldn’t have been because of one man making meth out of his bathtub. The point is, I began to track where it was coming from, as that was my job. But I came up with nothing, just a bunch of dead ends. There were never reports of anyone buying the massive quantities of chemicals I would expect for the size of the operation I felt was happening. No large shipments of fertilizer aside from the usual to farms in the surrounding counties, all of which have to carry permits to lawfully order. Even my usual contacts couldn’t tell me if there was a new major player out there.

  “You have to understand that all I had to support me was a bunch of random statistics that might have just been a fluke. Meth manufacturing can be a relatively cheap process when done right, and the use of meth was on the rise, so it was easier to turn a profit. For every number I had showing the spike, you could have found the same thing happening all over the country. I didn’t have any evidence. Nothing concrete, anyway.”

  “Then how’d you find anything?” I ask.

  He sighs. “I had a buddy in the DEA who owed me a favor. His reach goes further than mine, and I had him put out a couple of feelers to see if he could get a nibble where I couldn’t. He ran into someone who gave him someone else’s name. Turned out to be a hard-core drug user, but one who still seemed to be in his right mind, for the most part. We call ’em twitchers, because of the little seizures they seem to have, the shakes. He pointed us south. Turns out I’d been looking too far north. Portland, Tigard, hell, all of Multnomah County. I even spread my dragnet as far as the coast, places like Tillamook and Seafare. But he told us south. And that’s when I got a phone call. One of those quirky twists of fate. Luck, pure and simple. Early 2007, it was. Somehow landed on my desk. Maybe someone heard of my project, maybe they just tried to pass the buck off, I don’t know. But I picked up the phone and on the other end was a man who refused to give me his name. Deep voice, though. Sounded like he’d be a big guy.” He watches me directly as he says this last, anticipating my reaction.

  I feel the blood drain from my face as I draw in a sharp intake of breath. “Dad.”

  Corwin nods. “I
think so. I really do. Like I said, no name, wouldn’t give me his phone number, wouldn’t tell me where he was from or how he knew what he knew. Told me he was worried about what would happen to his family if he was found out. He had a son, he told me. Sounded real proud when he said it too.” I close my eyes. “Said he didn’t want to take the risk, but wanted to let me know he had reasons to suspect the good sheriff of Douglas County might not be as clean as he’d led others to believe. Seems said sheriff was actually quite the opposite of clean. And maybe others were involved as well. He didn’t have a whole lot to go on, but he wanted me to send the cavalry out here with guns blazing.”

  A tear slips down my cheek. That sounds just like Big Eddie. “But you didn’t, did you,” I say bitterly. “You didn’t do a damn thing.” Cal puts his arm around my shoulder and pulls me into him. I don’t care if someone has a fucking problem with it in the diner. I take comfort from his heat and the low growl coming from his throat, directed at the man across from us.

  “You have to understand, Benji,” Corwin said, looking miserable, “there wasn’t a whole lot I could do, at least not right then. Regardless of the small town it was in, sheriff is still an elected position, and then the mayor’s name was dropped as potentially being involved? It would have been a bureaucratic nightmare to accuse them without any evidence. My superiors would have laughed me out of their offices, and no judge would have granted me a warrant. It was all speculative. All I had were flow charts and the voice on the phone of a man I didn’t know. Hell, I had one of our geeks in the computer lab run satellite searches over the Umpqua National Forest and couldn’t find a damn thing that stuck out. If they were doing anything, it’d have to be well hidden.”

  “They were talking about moving,” I say suddenly, flashes of conversation running through my head. “They said things were getting too close.”

  “Who?” he says excitedly.

  “Walken. Griggs. Traynor. A couple of others.”

  “How do you know this?”