The Black Silent

CHAPTER 3

After Sarah left, Haley locked up the bikes, deep in thought. In the ocean when the fmgerlings or the herring were jumping and roiling at the surface, you knew there was something having dinner down below. She couldn't shake the feeling that Sanker was having dinner. Her worry over Ben was incessant. As with Ben's work, she had questions about Sam. After a fashion she had known him for twenty-three years, since she was nine. At that time he was nineteen and an impressive college jock.

Sam's father-a difficult, macho-type guy, to hear Ben tell it-had all the empathy of a wooden wall, but he had a sister who was the opposite. Her name was Helen, and she married Ben. Because of the rogue-male lifestyle led by Sam's dad, Sam would sometimes come to stay with Ben and Helen. That was mostly before Haley's time, and then after her time, he came out of gratitude and affection for Ben and Helen. Sam had a little of that family feeling in him despite the tough upbringing.

As far as Haley and everybody else was concerned, Sam's life after graduate school had been mostly secret; so when he came to visit, it was as if he walked right out of a dark closet and into these idyllic islands. As far as his life and his persona in the islands, she knew a lot. He was very strong and athletic, a good listener, never bragged, and didn't mind going unnoticed, although it was hard not to notice him.

She looked down toward the water and saw a big black man and some white guys walking down the waterfront street. They did not have the look of people from the island. Then they were gone.

A few moments later, Sam came along, headed for his chair. She developed the familiar nervous knot in her belly whenever they were alone.

She smiled at Sam, hoping it wasn't brittle. He smiled. Although he had been here first with his chair, starting nine months ago, somehow she felt he should move, since she had taken over the shop.

Apparently he wasn't moving and neither was she. She glanced up. Sam had gone back to his book, sitting only about twenty feet away.

Her phone rang and she jumped, casting about for the cordless contraption.

"It's in your back pocket," Sam said without even looking up.

Seeing it was Ben calling, she came back around the building to get better reception, but the call died. Then it came again.

"Haley," came a staticky voice, "this is Ben. Can you hear me?"

"Hey, how's it going?" The static worsened, and then it sounded like they were disconnected. It happened all the time on the island. "Hello, hello…" She tried for a minute and gave up.

"Was it Ben?" Sam asked.

He must be on a Russian spy ship.

"Yeah, but he disappeared. I just caught a few words, but he sounded stressed. Maybe things aren't going well in the lab. It's past lunch. I think I'll take him something to eat and see how he is. Maybe after, we can have a cup of coffee."

"I'll be here," Sam said, walking back to his chair.

Haley turned to leave.

"Say, Haley," he said as she left. She paused and turned. "Give me a call and let me know that everything's okay with Ben."

She nodded and left.

Haley parked in the lot behind Oaks, the building that housed Ben's office and lab.

Clouds were now starting to blow across the sky and making intermittent showers in the distance. At the moment the rain clouds formed a dark band up Lopez and all the way to Orcas, maybe beyond. Over on the far side of San Juan Channel, it looked like heavy rain.

She wrapped her coat around herself and walked through blowing leaves. Down the way, at the main building, she saw much more activity than she would have expected on the Sunday morning after Thanksgiving. At the gate she held a plastic card that Ben had given her up to the electronic detector and passed through a heavy revolving gate.

Months ago Garth Frick had taken her original key card with great fanfare. That had been the final humiliation.

Haley knew that she needed to be careful here. She didn't really like coming to Sanker.

Those old feelings of self-doubt threatened her every time she walked in the place.

Worse, if she were caught inside, Frick would seize the key card that Ben had loaned her for just such occasions. Fortunately, Ben's fellow scientists, although mostly against her, really weren't the sort of people to fight over entry privileges and they had ignored her on the few times that she had come. Their shunning only added to the pain.

She walked through some attractive gardens, with some artificial ponds and flowing water, and up to the glass revolving door, where she used the card again. Downstairs things appeared empty. As she mounted the stairs, she looked from a lower-floor lab's open door, through the window, and onto a small garden area. She saw a man running across the front of the building, apparently headed for the forest. That was strange.

Coming back down the stairs, she walked into the waterfront lab space and looked to the right, down the building. Sure enough, she saw a couple of men putting up yellow tape. Immediately she thought of the crime scenes seen on TV She went back and ran up the stairs. The halls were half-dark, the labs all silent. Turning around, she looked for a sign of someone, anyone. Nothing. As she walked down the hall toward Ben's office and lab, shadows and dark corners and the occasional watchman making the rounds replaced her memories of cheery, collegial greetings and chats and the perpetual movement of people.

The lights were off in the organics lab too. She turned them on. What she saw was appalling, as if someone had gone on a rampage. Had something happened to Ben?

"Hello?"

She jumped, badly startled by a sound. It was Frick, behind her, leaning against the doorway.

Garth Frick looked the part of an unpleasant cop. He smoked small cigars and told jokes, but his cadaverously wiry body expressed menace that outweighed any efforts at geniality. Frick's hair was black, drawn back and tied in a small ponytail. His sallow skin matched the gaunt look of his frame and his crooked teeth-a man who looked fit, lethal, and unwell all at once.

"Where's Ben?" she asked.

"Come with me." He walked up to her and put his hand in the small of her back, as if she were a girlfriend. She removed his hand, but he only chuckled. He led her to the storage room.

She followed a short distance behind. "Where are we going?"

"Relax," Frick said. "I want to show you something."

"No." She stopped at the door.

He turned around, grabbed her arm, and yanked her into the storage room, putting his face into hers.

"You're under arrest. Now quit moving and give me your purse."

"No." She tried to get out.

He punched her in the stomach, doubling her over in extreme pain. He slipped the purse strap off her shoulder and touched his mouth to her ear.

"I'm very busy at the moment, so I can't attend to you right now."

He took her hands and handcuffed them behind her back. Then he sat her on a box of glassware and stuffed a small towel in her mouth, using duct tape to keep it there.

It took Haley several minutes to recover from the punch. When she felt able, she rose, turned, and tried to open the door. Because there were radioactive isotopes in this storage room, the door had an extra bolt lock on the outside. Frick evidently had locked it. She returned and sat on the box and considered screaming, even with the towel. It didn't take her long to conclude that, yes, she should definitely scream. But the volume she generated was not impressive.

Then the lights went out.

While she sat in the storage room, Haley's anger and fear grew as she wondered what Frick might be doing to her adoptive father, Ben. The crime scene tape… she couldn't complete the thought.