Zero Regrets

(October 8, 2017)


18: In Search of Memories

When they all woke up on Sunday morning, the aroma of breakfast was in the air. They got up to find Deedee Hazard, dressed in a crisp khaki pantsuit and wearing an incongruous apron, in the kitchen. "Sit down," she said. "Coffee's ready. Breakfast in two minutes. The dog's been fed."

Tripper, sitting at her feet, gave her an adoring look.

"You didn't have to do this," Wendy said.

Hazard shrugged. "I'd hate to tell you how long it's been since I cooked a meal. It's something I miss."

Mabel took Tripper out briefly. She came back in and said, "He's running around doing his border patrol. Thanks—uh, can I call you Deedee?"

"If you want to call me by my right name, it's Amy," Hazard said. "But if you spread that, I'll have to kill you."

"Ah-ha!" Mabel laughed, but uncertainly.

"Here we go. Wendy, do you get airsick?"

"Never have yet," Wendy said.

"Then eat as much as you want."

"This looks interesting!" Mabel said. "What is it?"

"It's an Amish breakfast," Hazard said. "Eggs, chopped bacon, shredded potatoes, cottage cheese, cheddar cheese, onion, parsley, and thyme. And here's sourdough toast."

The dish was surprisingly tasty. They had just started when Dipper heard a car. He jumped up and opened the front door in time to prevent Stanford Pines from ringing the doorbell. "Come in," he said. "Agent Hazard made a great breakfast for us."

"Indeed?" Stanford lowered his voice. "She's no longer an agent, Mason. She's a Deputy Director."

"She said we could call her—uh, by another name," Dipper said. "Anyway, come on in. Have you had breakfast?"

"No. The motel doesn't provide oranges."

"Then eat with us."

Wendy poured his coffee, and Mabel gave him a slice of toast and one of the casserole. "It's fantastic!" she said. "Oh, the bacon's turkey, by the way."

"It is delicious," Ford agreed after one taste.

"Thanks, Chief," Hazard said. "What's the agenda?"

"I have a contact who's one of the administrators of Western Alliance University," Stanford said. "She's agreed to come in to the University and meet me in her office at nine. I think our first order of business is to do as much as we can to insure the safety of Miss Allie Therrol and her roommate, Miss Yarrow. Surely there must be someplace where they can be rehoused. I also want to go into the history of the dormitory room. I'm wondering why no red flags have been raised concerning Room 439."

"I'll go with you," Dipper volunteered.

"No, thank you, Mason, but that's contraindicated. You're a fellow student of the girls, and privacy concerns might prevent Dr. Canova from discussing the matter with full candor."

"OK," Dipper said.

"Will you take the Company car?" Hazard asked.

"Why don't you drive it?" Ford said. "I'm sure I can borrow Mason's car."

"That's fine," Dipper said.

"Then if you and your sister don't mind cleaning up, Wendy and I should be on our way to Willows."

"Dress code?" Wendy asked.

Hazard shrugged. "We're gonna be researching the history of Mrs. Bordein's family. We're distant relatives. Wear what you'd wear to class."

"Ten minutes," Wendy said. When she came out from the bedroom, she wore dark green slacks and a lighter green half-sleeved sweater. She'd put on the minimal makeup she normally did for class—light pink lipstick, a touch of blush, a slight application of mascara.

Dipper went to her, hugged her, and kissed her. "Good luck," he said. "And you be careful."

"I think I'm in good hands," she told him, while thinking, I love you, Dipper.

I love you so much it hurts, Wen. Call me when you get there so I'll know you're safe.

"OK," Wendy said. "Let's go."

Dipper walked them to the door. He saw Hazard stow her backpack in the trunk of the unmarked car, and he waved goodbye to them.

Then he went back inside. Ford and Mabel stood at the sink, Ford with his sleeves rolled up, exposing some faded tattoos—souvenirs of his journey through the Multiverse, though he didn't much like to talk about them—and his big hands under sudsy water, washing dishes. Mabel was drying.

Dipper tidied the table, wiping crumbs, as Tripper, with some canine ESP, came back inside and did a quick policing of any small fragments that fell on the floor.

Afterward, Mabel called Tammi, spoke to her for a few minutes, and then hung up. "Allie didn't come in last night. Tammi found her a few minutes ago, crammed in the back seat of her car. That's where she spent the night. Tammi didn't hear any noises today, but she thinks Allie is on the verge of collapse. I think we need to get her here. Let her take a shower, maybe try to nap a little."

"See if she'll agree to that," Ford said. "I think that would be an excellent idea."

"Wish Wendy was still here," Dipper said. "She can calm people down better than anybody I know."

Mabel put away the last dish. "Grunkle Ford, let me go in with you. I can maybe meet Allie and Tammi somewhere on campus. You get Dr. what's-her-name to get Tammi and Allie to come here to the house. We'll work it out. Dip and Wen can have my room, I'll sleep on the couch, and Tammi and Allie can use their room. We're out of school tomorrow and Tuesday anyhow 'cause of Columbus Day and fall break—but it's really like a hairline fracture—so they won't have classes. Only thing, I got rehearsal on Tuesday night."

"They won't be alone with me, though," Dipper said. "Wendy will be back."

"Yeah, like anybody would be afraid of you," Mabel teased.

Stanford glanced at his watch. "Mabel, call Miss Yarrow again. I'd suggest meeting them perhaps outside the Student Center, at the plaza tables. That's not very far from the Administration building, and I'll call you if Dr. Canova and I can reach an agreement."

"I guess I'll hold down the fort," Dipper said reluctantly.

"They also serve who only stand and wait," Ford said gently. "And I fear we'll face a serious test before long. Make your call, Mabel. We need to leave soon."


"This is it?" Wendy asked. Hazard had driven them to the airport on the southwest edge of town. The helicopter, rounded cabin, long tail boom, with twin vertical stabilizers above the rear rotor, looked scratched and chipped, its mustard-yellow paint somewhat faded. On the body behind the cabin was a logo of a flying hawk above a banner: SKYVIEW AERIAL SURVEYS.

"This is it," Hazard said. "The Professor—he's retired now, but—"

"He used to have Stanford's job," Wendy said. "Yeah, I met him when he was investigating something that involved me and Dipper."

"Didn't know that. Anyway, the Professor got tired of our black helicopters being the center of all sorts of urban legends. So they're all yellow now, and all have fictitious logos."

The chopper looked bigger inside than she expected. "What is this?" she asked as Hazard started her checklist.

"Boeing A/MH-6M. Name of the model's Little Bird. Give me a few minutes to finish this. It's important."

Wendy sat quietly while Hazard went through her preflight routine. "OK," she said. "Here, take the headset. It's gonna get loud. This is the only way we'll be able to talk to each other without screaming."

Wendy donned the earmuff-style headset. A small microphone on a curved boom was just in front of her lips. Hazard had a similar one. She switched them on and then Wendy heard her voice through the headset: "You reading me?"

"Gotcha," Wendy said. "Can you hear me?"

"Fine. Now, there's no powder room aboard. Have you gone to the bathroom?"

"Yeah, took care of that."

"Good. It's just about a 275-mile trip. Ordinarily that'd stretch our range, but this is different from the military version of the chopper. The Agency took out some of the passenger space—we could haul four, as opposed to six in the military copter—and added some fuel capacity. We have a range of 350 miles at cruising speed, 5000 feet altitude, so we've got a safety margin. We'll get clearance for take-off in a few minutes. I'm gonna go a little faster than factory cruising speed—about 140 knots instead of 135—so our ETA in Willows will be in about an hour and fifty minutes. Now I gotta talk to the tower."

Hazard called for CEC, she and a guy had a technical exchange, and it ended with, "G-119 to WLW, at 3500, 140, confirm."

Hazard repeated, she got clearance for takeoff, and she revved the engine. "Hang on," she told Wendy.

The machine shuddered and the rotors shrilled, and then they rose, the nose tilting a little forward. Wendy watched the ground fall away, and off to the right she glimpsed the Pacific. After a few minutes, the helicopter steadied and set off. The sun lay off to the left, at about 10 o'clock. It was a bright day, very few clouds. The landscape below was green and rolling at first.

"OK," Hazard said. "We'll pass over the coastal mountains—we'll maintain an altitude of about 3500 feet above them—but our flight plan's pretty direct. When we land, a contracted crew will take over to inspect and refuel the chopper. If nothing happens, it should be a smooth ride, maybe some turbulence over the mountains. You doing OK?"

"Doing fine," Wendy said. "Great view."

"Gets old." For a few minutes they flew without talking. Then Hazard asked, "So how do you like being married to Dipper?"

"How much do you like breathing?" Wendy asked. "I don't even think about it. It's the best time of my whole life."

"You guys have a good relationship?"

"You mean the sex? It's great. But we're on the same wavelength. The sharing makes it real."

"Lucky Dipper."

"Lucky me."

More silence. Then Hazard asked, "Not gonna ask me about my love life?"

"None of my business."

"Ouch! Sorry for being nosy."

"It's OK. We're both grown women."

"Well, for the record—I work too hard, but the relationships I've had—no complaints."

Somehow that got them over the hump, and they talked from then on not about personal things, but just stuff like the scene passing below them. The deep-green clad mountains leveled out to a flatter beige-and-green landscape and then to the patchwork of farms. They flew over a highway running north and south—"That's the Five," Hazard said—and turned due south, paralleling it.

More radio chatter, and Hazard said, "We'll be setting down at a private helipad near the airport. The Agency shares it with the National Guard. The ground crew is Agency. They won't talk to you. Don't talk to them."

"Got it," Wendy said.

She saw the place—they were still at three thousand feet—ahead. The main airport runway ran north and south. Beyond it to the south was a creek. On the left side of I-5 was a complex of a flat-roofed building at the center of an X, the arms of the X ending in round concrete pads. "That's us," Hazard said. "We're landing in five minutes. I've got to get on the radio again."

As they circled and lost altitude, Wendy saw there was a small glass-walled tower projecting from the roof of the building, and the controller apparently had them in sight from there. More chatter, and the chopper steadied above Pad C—it was marked with a yellow circle and a large yellow H inside, with a smaller red C in a white rectangle above it—and they set down, Hazard switched off the engine, and the five-bladed rotor began to make a whickering sound. "Stoop over when we get out," Hazard said. "Never take a chance with a moving rotor."

They both hustled off the pad bending at the waist. An elderly man in an olive-drab jumpsuit nodded at Hazard. She said, "Full inspection, fill the tanks. We'll be taking off for the return leg at 1300."

He repeated the instructions and then said, "Ground transport is the black Malibu in slot 5. Keys in the ignition."

"Come on," Hazard said. "If you're like me, you need a restroom."

"Wouldn't say no."

The restroom was inside the square white building. The person on duty—a middle-aged woman in fatigues—didn't greet them or look up from her paperwork. Behind her a steep stair presumably rose up into the control room. Wendy took care of business, Hazard said, "Go wait in the car," and then Hazard took Wendy's space in the cramped restroom.

Wendy followed the paved sidewalk leading between two of the helipads and through a chain-link fence into a parking lot with space for about twenty cars, but with only seven parked there. The Malibu was unlocked, but the air coming from it was oven-hot, so she stood by the car, letting it air out. She took out her phone and called Dipper. "Hey, Dip! On the ground in one piece."

"Great. How was the trip?"

"I want to save up to buy a helicopter. What are you up to?"

"Tripper and I are down at the creek. I'm screwing the treads on the bridge."

"Lucky treads!"

"Ha, ha. We may have house guests tonight, you know."

"Eh, mental make-outs don't make much noise. We're about to go to the nursing home. See you around three, three-thirty."

"Stay safe. Love you."

"Love you."

Hazard strode to the car and reached inside her clutch purse. She snicked open a dark pair of aviator shades. "OK," she said. "Let's go visit the woman."


Cedars Center lay only a ten-minute drive from the heliport. True to its name, the one-story brick assisted-living apartment house stood behind a row of precisely manicured cedars, trimmed into perfect cylinders. The lawns were richly green and shaded, and two or thee elderly folks were out for walks. Wendy heard the clack of wood on wood as she and Hazard walked from the lot to the main entrance. On a flat grass court off to the right, some old men were playing croquet. One waved at them. They didn't wave back.

At the front desk, Wendy asked for Mrs. Myrtle Bordein's room number. "Oh, Myrtie!" the lady said, smiling. "She has so few visitors. She'll be at chapel services right now. That will end at eleven-thirty. Then she'll be back in her room, which is 120-E. That's the east wing, there on the right. You're welcome to join the services in the assembly room, or you can wait in the lobby here."

"We'll wait," Wendy said.

They sat leafing through old magazines for fifteen minutes. Then Wendy looked up at the sound of voices coming from twenty or so old people, dressed in their Sunday best, the men in suits or sport jackets, some with ties, the women in A-line dresses, some wearing hats. One, a crickety little woman who was using a walker, was heading toward the east hallway when the lady behind the desk said, "Myrtie! You have visitors!"

Hazard got up and Wendy followed. "Mrs. Bordein?"

The wrinkled little face peered through thick glasses that made her eyes look enormous. Her hair was a pure white, and she wore a somber black dress with white lace at the neck and cuffs. "Yes?" she asked, her voice crackling with age.

"We'd like to talk to you about your sister," Hazard said quietly.

For a long time the old woman simply stared. "About how she died?"

"Yes."

"Do you think she was just crazy?"

"No," Hazard said. "We think something made her do it."

"It's about time," the old woman said. "Come with me. I'll give you an earful."