The Haunting of Swinomish Channel Part 3

Murr joins the search for Ben.

Not caught up? This is a serialized novel, so read parts one and two here first!

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Murr leaves Seattle and drives to La Conner to help search for her missing friend, Ben. Carolyn asks her to try to pinpoint some places Ben might have gone, and Murr doesn’t understand how Ben could have disappeared or gotten lost in such a populated spot.

I take a moment to look around the bookstore. I know most of the people here. I grew up with most of the young ones and got yelled at by most of the old ones. It’s weird to be back among them, especially because of something like this. There must be two dozen people crammed into this room.

Still, one person is missing.

“Where’s Chelsea?” I ask Carolyn. Chelsea is Ben’s aunt. She raised him after his parents died. She took him in after the incident. I used to think it was the only truly selfless thing she had ever done. In recent years, I’m not even so sure of that. Was it selflessness that led her to adopt her brother’s only child, or was it something else? Did it feed some other compulsion?

“She told me she was going to call some more people to let them know what’s going on,” Carolyn says. “She hasn’t been back yet?”

“I haven’t seen her.” Of course Chelsea isn’t here. Of course she isn’t actively looking for Ben. I try to rein in my cynicism, but it isn’t easy. Even as a kid, I never liked Chelsea.

“Okay. Well, I’m going to get a piece of pizza, and then I’m going to get these jokers back on the trail,” Carolyn claps her hands together and crosses the room in a few purposeful strides.

A gust of wind slams into the bookstore door, propped open by someone’s backpack. The door shudders and groans painfully on its hinges. I listen to the wind as it rushes along First Street, turning from a high-pitched moan to a low panther’s growl as it retreats. A torrent of old snow rains down from the eaves, some falling in chunks, some dissolving into a light dust. As I watch, temporarily taken in by winter’s display, headlights appear in the distance, cutting through the old snow.

Maybe it’s Chelsea. Maybe she’s finally showing up.

I watch as a silver truck rolls into view and parks right in front of the bookstore. The truck isn’t Chelsea’s. In fact, I don’t recognize it at all. Maybe that doesn’t mean anything, though. I’m sure there are at least a few people around here who have bought new cars in the last few months. I can’t expect the whole town to freeze just because I left.

Carolyn returns with a slice of pizza folded over on itself. “You ready?” She asks in between bites, casual as anything.

“Somebody else just showed up,” I say.

The truck door slams, and we both wait to see exactly who will walk through the door. The guy is dressed in sweatpants, a plaid shirt, and a heavy coat. He literally looks like he just threw on all of his warmest clothes and sprinted out the door, which is probably what he did. I think I recognize him, but I can’t quite figure out why. He looks like someone I might have sat next to on the subway once, or maybe someone I had a college class with.

He heads straight for the coffee.

“Who is that guy?” I mumble to Carolyn. “He looks familiar.”

She’s quiet. When I finally turn to look at her, she’s staring at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Murr, that’s Vince.”

My head snaps up before I can stop myself. When I look at Vince, he’s looking across the room at me, too. I look away quickly. That’s Vince? The Vince I spent every grade-school summer with? The Vince who went to nature camp with me my first year because I was too scared to go alone? The one who left town right before middle school started because his parents got divorced? The one who I promised to write to and never did?

It all comes flooding back, and I force it all out of my head. I have more pressing things to deal with.

Carolyn, however, isn’t ready to let it go. “You seriously don’t recognize Vince?”

I’m tempted to say, “Not with the beard.” Instead I say, “I do recognize him. I just couldn’t place him. I haven’t seen him in years.”

“And you aren’t friends on Instagram or anything?”

“He doesn’t have social media,” I reply, and realize that my answer is suspiciously quick. Sure. I’d looked for him. I had also looked up my entire 8th grade class one half-drunk night. I chalk it all up to normal curiosity.

Carolyn looks at me incredulously, but then seems to remember there are bigger things at stake tonight. She claps her hands. “So what are you thinking?” She asks.

I sneak another glance at Vince. He rolls up his sleeves and checks his watch, and for a second I flash back to that Ninja Turtle watch he had when we were kids. It’s so strange that I would see him again after all these years, and under these circumstances.

“I’m thinking I’ve done all I can here,” I say. “Let’s go find Ben.”

Carolyn stands in the middle of the room and whistles, and the searchers all turn to her like she’s still class president and the volleyball captain and they’re still bright-eyed high schoolers. I recognize Terry, the assistant coach for the wrestling team, Miles, the funeral director, and Anna, the waitress at Adventure Cafe. Jo, Vince’s step-sister, is here too.

“Team Two, I’d like you to hit the beach. That’s where he was planning on ending the day, and there’s always a chance we could find something out there. Team One, you’re with Murr and me. Teams Three and Four, I have no idea what you people are doing—go talk to Deputy Porter.” She says the last part with her signature dry humor, and hesitant chuckles ripple through the crowd.

Team Two breaks away from the others. Jo and Terry join us, and I’m glad of it. I trust them both. They’re good people and out of everyone in this room, they’re the ones I want with me.

As I walk past Vince, I lift my hand in a silent wave. I’m pretty sure he recognizes me—something flickers across his face as we lock eyes—but I don’t give him enough time to say anything.

“Vince, you’re with us,” I hear Carolyn say as she follows me out the door.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, for sure. We can take my truck if you want.”

“Thanks,” Carolyn says.

Carolyn’s truck is gorgeous, but it doesn’t have four-wheel drive, and the roads are already icing over.

I climb into Vince’s truck bed. We could have all fit in the cab, but I don’t want to deal with pleasantries, or stilted questions about my life and career, or platitudes about Ben. Besides, I feel like this will give me a chance to breathe. I’ll be able to think out here, and more importantly, I’ll be able to see everything. I want to give myself every chance to think of something new—to come up with some genius insight as to where Ben might have gone.

We drive slowly through town, past all the backlit, shut-down businesses. The giant Christmas tree—three or four stories tall—stands on the boardwalk. I grew up on this channel, sitting on the dock, taking paddle boats up and down, dodging the yachts and fishing boats.

Vince turns onto the bridge that crosses the channel, and I look down at the water beneath us. It shines like silver, even with the woolly blanket of clouds hanging low in the sky.

A thought forms in my mind as we drive across the bridge.

Ben never made it home.

But what if he almost did?

There are two ways back across the channel into the historic heart of La Conner. There’s the car bridge—the one that hangs high, bright red and dramatic against the cool blue and green of the forest and the channel and the sky. There’s another way, too. There’s the train bridge. The train hasn’t run there in decades, but Ben and I used to cross it all the time.

Normally I wouldn’t consider it dangerous—not for us. We had walked that train bridge a hundred times without trouble. But it had been snowing for the last few days. The tracks will be slick, and the rocks on either side are jagged.

I don’t want to think about what that would mean for Ben—but I have to consider it. It’s realistic, it’s possible, and I can’t shake the feeling that it could be true. I turn around in the bed of the truck. I look back at the dark shape of the train bridge silhouetted against the water. Winter wind whips my hair into my face, but even so, I can still see the bridge. Deep in the water, I see something else too. I see a light.

It’s faint, but there’s no mistaking the glow. Something is down there that doesn’t belong.

Part Four →