J.M.J.

Author's note: Thanks for reading! Thanks especially to everyone who has left reviews! The next chapter will be up tomorrow. God bless!

July 16 – Sunday

Sunday morning after church services, three sets of travelers set out from Bayport. Carson was on his way to Hawaii, while Fenton, Sam, and Jack set out for Butte, Montana, by plane. Meanwhile, Nancy was setting off for Montana by car along with Callie, Iola, and Jerry, despite some misgivings on everyone's parts, except for Iola and Jerry. Those two were bound and determined to go, even if they would be the only ones. That was a large part of the reason why Callie had agreed to go, since she didn't want to see Iola and Jerry going off by themselves and possibly getting into trouble. That was part of Nancy's motivation as well, but she couldn't honestly say that she wasn't at least slightly hopeful that they would find some clue in Beaver Spring.

"How long is it going to take us to drive this, anyway?" Iola asked as she loaded her duffle bag into the back of Jerry's SUV.

"According to Google Maps, it's about two thousand, five hundred miles and takes about a day and a half to drive straight through," Jerry replied. "I think we should try to drive it straight through, since we've got four people who can drive."

"Have you ever been in a car for a day and a half straight?" Nancy asked, opening the door to the front passenger seat. "I'll agree that we don't need to stop all night, but we are going to need to stop often enough that this will probably take more like three days."

"In that case, we'd better get started if we're actually going to do this," Callie said.

HBNDHBNDHB

Jack Wayne landed the rented plane at the Butte airport, which was south of the city. While Jack took care of the plane, Fenton rented a car and he and Sam headed to the nearest police station, where they checked in with the Butte detectives. The one they spoke with was Captain Roger Klavan. He was a middle-aged man, his hairline beginning to recede and a deceptively dull look about him.

"I suppose you're here about the Transol murder," Klavan said as soon as Fenton had introduced himself and Sam.

The private detectives glanced at one another before Fenton said, "As a matter of fact, yes. How did you know?"

"I had a call from an FBI agent, saying that you might be coming to ask about it, and to let them know if you did." Klavan shrugged. "The FBI can find their own informants. It sounds like some kind of bureaucratic mess, and I don't have time to get mixed up in that. The Transol case has been cold a long time. Anybody who wants to ask about it is welcome."

"Okay," Fenton said. "In that case, would you be willing to let us see your file on the case?"

Klavan stood up from his desk and went over to a filing cabinet, from which he took a file. "I have it right here. After the FBI called, I thought I might as well get it out. I've been reviewing it, too. You know, we never got very far on that one. Do you think you have a lead on it?"

"No," Fenton replied. "We're hoping to get a lead on a different case that may be related to this one."

Klavan nodded and handed over the file. "I heard about that one. I'm very sorry."

"Thank you," Fenton said, looking down at the file in his hands.

"Did you work on the Transol case at the time, by any chance?" Sam asked.

"I was the lead detective on it, as a matter of fact," Klavan replied. "Of all the cases I've worked, that was one of the most disturbing ones. I'm sure you've read up on it, though."

"We have, somewhat," Sam replied. "It's been a low priority in our investigation until a couple of days ago, so we haven't read as much as we could. Why don't you tell us about it, to begin with?"

"All right, well, Transol was the first body that turned up. That was in Lake Milestone, about thirty miles south of here. Some kids were scuba-diving and found him. It was just bones at that point, but they found the skull, so they knew they were human bones. They called the police and we searched that part of the lake. We were able to recover most of the bones, and we ID'd them through dental records. Transol, you know, was a hired hitman, who worked at different times for a couple of different criminal organizations. Obviously, we suspected that his murder was related to that, but we could never come up with any proof."

"Were you able to determine a cause of death?" Fenton asked.

"Yes. A gunshot wound to the back of the head, execution-style. That also helped convince us that some mob was involved."

"But you were never able to determine which one?" Sam asked.

Klavan shook his head. "Transol was for hire. Didn't seem to have a shred of loyalty. Maybe one of them found out he was moonlighting for other mobs. We don't know."

Fenton looked up from the folder. "You said that Transol was the first body that turned up."

"That's right. Since then, there have been two others in lakes or waterways nearby, all right around the same time," Klavan confirmed. "One of them hasn't been identified yet. The other was also a hitman named Nelson Asaya. We don't know any of his employers definitely, although we did find evidence that he hired himself out for that sort of job. Same thing, no leads."

"But you think the murders might have been related?" Fentn asked.

Klavan shrugged. "We don't know. It seems likely that they were, given the similarities, but we can't prove it."

"Have the lakes around here been dragged thoroughly?" Sam asked. "Could there be other bodies down there?"

"We can't drag the lake," Klavan explained. "Environmental concerns. Divers have been down there, though. They haven't found anything, but that doesn't mean there isn't anything to be found."

"Do you know where we could rent diving equipment?" Fenton asked.

Klavan crooked an eyebrow upward. "Do you know what you're doing?"

Fenton nodded. "I've done it before."

"Okay, then," Klavan replied. "There aren't many rental places around here—we're not exactly the coast—but we can probably find something."

HBNDHBNDHB

Breakfast was later on Sundays than on other days on Barmet Island. The boys had agreed that it seemed most appropriate to have their church service first thing in the morning and then eat breakfast afterwards. Nevertheless, it was barely past dawn, and Phil was digging potatoes to make into hashbrowns. The other boys hadn't gotten up yet, and Phil was watching the doorway of the cabin, hoping that Tony would be the first one to put in an appearance. He had something to talk to Tony about, and he didn't particularly want the other boys to hear. First thing in the morning tended to be a good time to talk privately with him, since Tony was usually the first awake, especially with Frank sleeping in longer while he recovered.

Phil breathed a little easier when he saw Tony come out of the cabin, his journal and the Bible under his arm and a pencil tucked behind his ear. Tony nodded to him and wished him a cheery good morning.

"Morning," Phil replied. "Say, Tony, could we talk about something?"

Tony instantly seemed a trifle more apprehensive, but all he said was, "Sure. What's going on?"

Phil remained kneeling next to the potato mound he had been digging, although it felt a bit awkward to talk to Tony, who was standing, from that position. "About the other night, when I kind of freaked out…I just wanted to say I'm sorry about that."

"Oh." Tony looked down. "We've all been under a lot of stress. You don't need to apologize to me."

"Yeah, well, I'm not sure if it was entirely stress talking," Phil admitted.

"It's hard to tell," Tony said. "We're not really in much better a situation than we were a couple days ago. I mean, the whole Frank situation is better, but maybe, in hindsight, we were all being a little overdramatic about it."

"Possibly," Phil agreed. "Anyway, I do have some doubts. The only difference the situation made was that I probably wouldn't have mentioned it."

Tony sat down cross-legged so that they could speak on more even terms. "I know how that is."

"Do you have some doubts?" Phil asked, trying to disguise his eagerness for someone else to be in the same difficulty as himself.

"No," Tony replied. "Not now, anyway."

"Not now?" Phil repeated in confusion. "But you have before?"

"Everybody has questions sometimes. Sometimes it's harder to believe in God than other times. I guess I've never really had doubts about that, specifically, but there are other things. Usually it comes down to wondering whether I really understand it right or not."

"How can you not have doubts about the existence of someone you've never seen?"

Tony grinned slightly. "You wouldn't like the answer to that."

Phil gave him a questioning look. "What do you mean by that?"

"I'm Catholic. Catholics believe that the Eucharist—the bread and the wine after it's been consecrated at Mass—literally is Jesus, and we believe that Jesus is God, so technically…But I know what you mean…"

"You don't actually believe that," Phil interrupted him.

"I do, actually. I know it sounds strange…"

"That's putting it mildly. Honestly, you can't believe that. For one thing, if you did, wouldn't you have mentioned something that big to me? Or are you seriously just like, 'Oh yeah, God is literally in that building and I go see Him every Sunday, but it's not like it's important or anything'?"

Tony let out a long breath. "No, it's not like that. I mean, to some extent it is. It's really hard to explain."

"How can you believe in something that you can't even explain?"

"I believe in a lot of things I can't explain."

"Maybe you shouldn't."

"That might get a little awkward," Tony replied. "I mean, gravity is one of the things I believe in but couldn't begin to explain. Smaller object is attracted to much bigger object and goes toward it makes sense, as far as that goes, but the same force causing the planets to go around the sun and moons to go around the planets and by the way, it also has some effect on light, which I couldn't begin to explain how light works let alone how gravity could possibly have an effect on it…I don't understand any of that. But I still believe it."

"That's different," Phil protested.

Tony nodded. "Yeah, but the point is that it doesn't work to just say that you shouldn't believe what you can't explain. Anyway, what I meant was hard to explain was how I can at the same time believe that the Eucharist is God and be so casual about it. I guess it comes down to the fact that God doesn't generally let us see what He's really like, so it's not like believing in things that we can see, because we can't help believing in those things. God lets us choose whether to believe in Him or not. He doesn't force us to. So it's kind of like…Oh, I don't know what to compare it to. But it's an act of the will to believe in God, and because it's an act of will, your emotions aren't always in tune with it. So that makes it harder to act appropriately. It's not an excuse; it's just an explanation."

"So in other words, you have to check reason at the door."

"No. No, not at all." Tony chuckled. "You have to check emotion at the door, which you also often have to do to be reasonable. It's no different than if you saw some member of the royal family dressed in old, ragged clothes and working at some manual labor or something, and you were told who it was by someone you trusted. You'd try to act like you would in front of royalty normally, but without the crowns and the fancy clothes and the palace and the pomp and circumstance, the emotional understanding of who it is wouldn't be there, and it would be really hard to act appropriately. You wouldn't say that that's unreasonable, would you?"

"No, I guess not," Phil conceded. "It's still the weirdest thing I've ever heard."

"Okay." Tony took in a deep breath. "But we were supposed to be talking about you, and I sort of derailed that conversation."

"Yeah." Phil rubbed the side of his head. "Well, in any case, since I do have some doubts and I'm not a Christian anyway, if it's all the same to you, I think I'll sit the whole church thing out today."

Tony hesitated for a few seconds. "If that's what you want."

HBNDHBNDHB

Carson scanned the faces in the airport for one that was familiar. Don Cameron had offered to pick him up, and although Carson had initially told him that that wasn't necessary, he had eventually accepted the offer with gratitude. He spotted the young man—who was looking around, probably for Carson—a moment later and strode up to him. Don noticed him just before he reached him and held out his hand to shake.

"Thank you for picking me up," Carson said.

"You're welcome, Mr. Drew," Don assured him. "It's the least I can do, considering what a big mess this has turned into."

"That wasn't because of anything you did," Carson assured him.

"Maybe not," Don replied, "but it's still the biggest mess I've ever seen, and I'd like to help as much as I can."

"We'll see what you can do," Carson said. "I'm afraid you getting too involved will only get you in more trouble, though."

Don laughed. "Considering I might very well be on an FBI watchlist already, I probably can't get in much more trouble."

"You might be surprised how much trouble one person can get into," Carson warned him, although with a trace of a smile. He had always liked Don, and he hoped the young man would be able to get through this without too much injury.

While they were talking, the men were walking out to the parking lot where Don had left his car. He had parked next to a black van, which Carson didn't like the looks of at all. He pulled up to a stop when he saw it.

"Was that van there when you parked here?"

"No," Don replied, also eying the van suspiciously. "Should we stay back from it?"

Carson considered for a few seconds. "Let's just both get in on the other side of the car."

Fortunately, the van was parked on the passenger side of Don's car, so they could both get in from the opposite side without difficulty, as long as Carson was content to sit in the back. They moved together so that they could minimize the time that they were in the vicinity of the van. However, as they approached it, there was no sign of anyone inside, despite both of them keeping an eye on the dark-tinted windows for even a hint of movement.

Don let Carson in between the parked cars first so that he could reach the rear door. They were opening the doors at almost the same time, when Carson suddenly felt someone grab him from behind. A cloth was pressed over his mouth and while he tried to struggle or shout, he wasn't able to break the grip or make a sound. After a moment or two, darkness overwhelmed him.