That Day in May
(April-May 2018)
9-Naturally, Maybe
At his earliest opportunity, Grunkle Ford called Fiddleford McGucket and had him cover the two classes at the Institute that Ford was teaching. Then they all waited to hear news from San Diego.
They didn't get the report until 11:00 that Tuesday morning. By then, a worried Soos had taken his family off to Portland. Soos really had no occasion for anxiety. When the police down in San Diego learned that Soos had only had a business deal with Mr. Braun and that he'd been a thousand miles away all the previous day and night, Lieutenant Alvarez had peppered him with a few brusque questions and had taken his contact information, and that was that.
Ford assured Soos that he had no legal problem to be concerned about. "You have an unbreakable alibi. Visit Melody's and your family members in Portland and take your mind off all this. We'll keep you informed of any developments here."
"Yeah," Stan added. "And we'll make sure the Shack is safe by the time you get back."
And even before the Ramirezes had left, Ford was on the phone to the Agency office nearest San Diego. That happened to be the Los Angeles station, located not in Los Angeles, but in San Clemente, for political reasons—too many reasons, too much history, to get into, and none of it matters much, so skip it.
Anyway, the GIB station was only fifty-odd miles north of San Diego. Just phoning it was a complex operation without the super-security available in Ford's lab. He had to call a cut-out number, which gave him a full minute of "We're sorry. This number is no longer in service." Then an AI program asked him for a series of verification codes, and finally, his connection switched to a secure line. A minute after that, he was speaking to Agent Geoffrey Trigger, who had been promoted to head the LA station.
"Sir, yes sir!" Trigger snapped as soon as he heard Ford's caution that he had an urgent mission for him.
Now, first some background on the station. Oh, sure, admit it, you're interested. You wouldn't skip these two paragraphs, now, would you? Please yourself. OK, most of the Agency regional stations were deceptively small, and the LA one was no exception: Trigger, plus a second-in-command, plus a secretarial staff of two, plus four field agents, and that was it. The thing about the Agency, it was highly mobile. If Trigger needed a major deployment of personnel, they could arrive within an hour.
The bare-bones approach meant that station offices were inconspicuous, out of the way, and always bore signage identifying them as something semi-official and not at all in any way involved in supernatural, paranormal, or bizzaro developments. The San Clemente office occupied a plain-looking, rather shabby cinder-block six-room building (eight if we include men's and women's toilets) the size of a small bungalow. The basement, now, that was a different story, covering five thousand square feet. But on the surface anyone passing the small square building would see it and its parking lot surrounded by a twelve-foot-tall chain-link fence topped by coils of razor wire. The sign identified it as US TESTING CENTER FOR COMMUNICABLE COLOSPIROFORMNIA. BIOHAZARD! They never got any drop-ins.
OK, if you skipped those remarkably interesting paragraphs, here's where we start again: Ford winced a little at Trigger's usual paramilitary response. However, though the man had a long and inflexible stick shoved up his—well, never mind. We'll say though Trigger could be humorless and curt, he did have a high level of dedication to the job. Ford quickly told Trigger what he wanted, Trigger immediately repeated the requirements verbatim, and while they waited for action, Ford and Dipper did some online research that left them a bit more knowledgeable about Tarot cards and no wiser about the Witch.
A little after eleven, Trigger, now on site in San Diego (he'd gone there by chopper), phoned in a preliminary report. The Agency had established covers for working with local law-enforcement departments, often a necessity when a UFO landed in someone's back yard or a Bigfoot broke into someone's pantry to steal cans of beans and screwdrivers. The San Diego police already knew Trigger as a Special Agent. In fact, Lieutenant Alvarez and his team had worked with Trigger before, and if they assumed he was FBI, that was on them.
Oh, sure, they could check with the Bureau, and the Bureau would in turn check their computers and say, "He's OK. Work with him." True, the FBI wouldn't really be able to find him if they looked, but the computer cleared him and that was what mattered. If he'd happened to have been sent abroad, let's say to Australia, where there was, oh, we'll call it a bunyip infestation and the Australian authorities checked back with the States, they'd call someone at the CIA, who'd do the same thing as the FBI: "He's one of our top men. Top. Men."
In fact, the Guys in Black were far more secretive and secretly more powerful than either of those agencies. Surprisingly, in the entire Federal government, there was only one man who wielded more power than the Agency.
No, not him. It was the Commissioner of Federal Holidays, a position so clandestine that no one in or out of government has ever heard of it. Thankfully, the Commissioner had been appointed back in the Reagan era and still occupied the office. He was a hundred and seven, and as long as everybody left him alone, he left others alone, content with the private knowledge that he could do almost anything with impunity. His salary and benefits were so comfortable that he never actually did anything at all. Because he was aware that one day he would die, the Commissioner had already picked out his successor. The only thing his replacement would have to do was legally change his name—
How'd I get off on that? Somebody stop me. Federal bureaucracies are a maze.
Anyway, Trigger had worked with Alvarez and the San Diego police before, and they willingly shared what they had. In the course of an hour and a half Trigger dug into the case and then placed a highly secured call to Ford to report.
Say what you want about Geoffrey Trigger, he was thorough and focused and discreet. When he first showed up at the crime scene, he managed to imply that the death of a retired former amusement entrepreneur might possibly have ties to a federal case that he couldn't detail. The cops knew that in the past five years Trigger had cleared up three cases and had given the locals all the credit. As a result, Trigger got free access to what they had, and the officers were willing to tell him what they thought, which had changed since Soos's early-morning call.
"It's not, repeat, it is not, a homicide investigation," Trigger told Ford. "The medical examiner is positive that Braun died of a heart attack possibly brought on by sleep apnea. Braun's apartment is in an assisted-living complex. The downstairs neighbors heard some thuds and crashes and called the night desk. A security officer knocked on the door, got no answer, and unlocked to find Braun sprawled on the floor of his bedroom. She ascertained that Braun was dead, called 911, and the police arrived just before the EMTs, who confirmed the death."
"What's your read of the scene?" Ford asked.
"In view of the preliminary medical report, I agree with the police. Braun evidently got out of bed, fell, and thrashed around, maybe trying to reach the phone. The disorder of the scene caused the first responders to think there had been a struggle. However, the police found no physical evidence of any intrusion."
"Thank you, Agent Trigger," Ford said.
"There's more, sir," Trigger said. "I'm holding a piece of evidence that I'll have to slip into the case file before I depart the city, so I'll send you a copy of that and some documentation. This case may be one of ours."
Ford sighed. "I was afraid of that."
All that morning, Ford had been pacing, head down, shoulders slouched. At one point, he stopped and asked Lorena, "Have I had breakfast?"
"Only coffee," she said. "What would you like?"
"I'll get an orange."
That was his go-to breakfast. He had missed oranges while he was off in strange dimensions, and since his return, he often had only a single orange, eaten whole, for breakfast. In his state of worry, he immediately forgot to get one from the fridge, but Lorena brought him one on a small plate, peeled, sectioned, and seeded. When she handed it to him, he blinked at it. "What's this?"
"Breakfast," she reminded him gently.
"My favorite." He kissed her cheek, resumed his pacing, and somehow remembered actually to eat the orange.
Sheila, in casual slacks and a gray sweater, had come down the hill to help out, but really there was nothing to do. She and Lorena had tea and chatted in the living room while a grumpy, unshaven Stan sat at the dining-room table playing blackjack against himself and grumbling because he was losing.
Wendy and Dipper sat in on a couple of hands, and Stan won those—an ace and a ten to Wendy's pair of nines and Dipper's Jack and King, for example. They weren't cheating, nor was Stan. "Your luck's holding," Wendy said cheerfully.
"Yeah, maybe I can play that Witch for the Shack," he growled.
In the early afternoon Lorena and Sheila insisted that everyone at least have sandwiches for lunch. While they were eating, Trigger's secured transmission came in. Ford heard the special tone his phone made when something ultra-secret was received, and he jumped up from his half-finished sandwich. "I'll go print that out—"
"Sit still and eat," Lorena said. "I've finished. I'll go do it."
"I really ought to go back to the Shack," Ford said. He looked stressed—he had as heavy a five o'clock shadow as Stan, and his eyes were baggy from weariness. "Just a few focused readings would tell me if the Witch's powers were intensifying. Perhaps I could tie a lifeline around my waist—"
"We'd have to knock you out again," Dipper said. "That can't be good for you."
"Let Dipper and me do it," Wendy said. "We can get through the weirdness barrier, long as we hold hands."
"Well—" Ford said reluctantly.
Lorena came in with a sheaf of computer print-out. "It's nearly fifty pages," she said, handing it to Ford. "And no, I didn't read any of it except for the cover."
Dipper could see what was on that page:
CLASSIFIED INFORMATION
SECURITY LEVEL A-10
WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO THIS
DOCUMENT IS PUNISHABLE BY FIVE YEARS IMPRISONMENT
IN A FEDERAL PENITENTIARY!
LEVEL 5 OR HIGHER AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED.
CLASSIFIED, LEVEL A-10
"I have some reading to do," Ford said. "Wendy, Mason, if the two of you are willing and promise me to take every precaution, I'll let you go into the house to scan the premises. Confine yourself to the gift shop. Don't, under any circumstances, enter the Museum. Don't even unlock or open the door to the Museum! Stand at a distance of five feet from the locked door and scan that. Oh, and each of you take a quantum destabilizer pistol."
"Will that even help?" Dipper asked.
With a frustrated expression, Ford said, "I have no idea, but knowing you're armed will make me feel easier in my mind."
"Let's suit up, Dip," Wendy said. "I want to kick that Witch's mechanical butt so we can sleep in the attic tonight!"
"Stanley!" Ford called.
"I'm right here, Poindexter," Stan said from the doorway, taking a long last sip from his coffee cup. "What?"
"I'm asking Mason and Wendy to—"
Stan rolled his eyes. "I heard."
Ford nodded. "Sorry. Please help. I'd like you to go with them, park in the lot, and keep an eye on the Shack. I'll equip them with Agency earpieces and give you one. If they get in trouble, they'll call for help. You—wait for me. Don't go rushing in yourself."
"Gimme one of your destabilizer rifles, then," Stan said. "I'll get 'em out somehow—even if I have to blow up the Shack to do it."
"Swear to me that you won't go in after them," Ford said. "Wait for me."
"OK, OK, sheesh!"
"Swear—" Ford paused a moment. "Swear on our mother's soul. Let me hear you say it."
Stan heaved an elaborate sigh, but said, "I swear on our mother's soul that I won't go rushin' in if they call me. I'll wait for you before I shoot or go in or anything."
"Then you can go."
"Thank you so much," Stan said.
"That means a lot to me, Stanley." When preoccupied, Ford wasn't all that good at catching sarcasm.
Stan again drove Wendy and Dipper up to the Shack in his El Diablo. The building looked the same as when they had left it—no better, no worse. A significant lack of wildly-sprouting, alien-looking plants pulsating with an eldritch, nauseating life force showed itself. They saw only just lawn, streaked with remnants of snow and not yet green, interrupted by pine and fir trees, all around the Shack. No unsettling shrieks and cackles interrupted the birdsong and woodpecker drumming. A suffocating foeter failed to emanate from the building and did not overpower them.
"Ready for this?" Dipper asked Wendy.
Wendy's jaw jutted. "Let's do it."
With his right hand, he held tight to her left. In his left hand, he held Ford's most sophisticated anomaly detector. Unlike Dipper's simpler version, this one did not have to be tuned. It constantly swept all levels of reality and its readouts reported anything beyond the ordinary Gravity Falls weirdness. Wendy held in her right hand a threat detector that would immediately sound an alarm in case of any degree of psychic assault.
Holstered at their hips were two quantum destabilizer pistols, set to medium-high: not STUN but ELIMINATE.
The two took deep breaths, and hand in hand, they crossed the lawn and passed through the unicorn-hair barrier. It prickled their skins and made their hair bristle with static electricity but did not impede them.
They paused on the porch to take readings. Dipper asked aloud, "Grunkle Ford? Are you receiving this?"
"Mason, when you finish a statement, say over. Over."
Stan's voice: "Sheesh, and you complain about Trigger! Over!"
Dipper said, "Sorry, not used to this. The reading's pretty high. Are you getting it? Over."
"I'm receiving it. Spectral and apparitional activity is indicated. The threat detector is within normal range. Where are you? Over."
"About to enter the Shack," Dipper said. "Gift shop door. Over."
"Go ahead. I'm following and recording the readings, so you needn't report constantly. Concentrate on keeping safe. Let me know when you're scanning the Museum door, though. Over."
Dipper opened the door—and Tripper rushed out, frantically running. "Oh, my God, we forgot him!" Wendy said.
"Wendy, when you finish your transmission, say o—"
Stan opened the door of the El Diablo, and the dog ran straight to him and leaped inside. "I got the poor little guy, Ford. Get over yourself. Over!"
With Dipper carrying a load of guilt over having left Tripper inside the Shack, he and Wendy crossed the threshold. Wendy comforted him mentally: Tripper's OK. He got through the boundary just fine. The Witch didn't screw with him.
—I should've remembered him, though. Here we go. Let's look around. The gift shop was as quiet as it was any morning before tourists flooded in. Dipper managed to turn on the lights with his elbow. He and Wendy crossed toward the Museum entrance until Wendy thought to him, Far enough. This is about five feet.
—Full scan. Start now.
They extended their detectors toward the Museum where the Tarot Witch lurked. The devices made no noise but vibrated in their grip as the scanners looked for something, anything.
Then Wendy's threat detector made a shriek like a siren.
Ford's voice came through the earpieces like a whiplash: "Get out! Get out right now!"
To be continued