Free The Murder Channel by John Philpin

Shannon Waycross sunned herself. She and her husband were new in Ravenwood that summer. They had not signed up for the
Informer.
Her skin was already tanned, but she coated herself with lotion, taking great care with her stomach and upper breasts, then reclined behind her sunglasses. I knew little about her, except that she was beautiful, dark, mysterious, and alone.
    “I call her my lady of sorrow,” I said now.
    Sable shuffled through the deep snow. “Why do you call her that?” she asked.
    “I read it somewhere when I was in school. There is a lady of tears, one of sighs, one of darkness. They are ladies of sorrow. I liked the passage because it contained my sister’s name, Levana.”
    “That’s a pretty name. What does it mean?”
    “My parents liked the sound of it. I don’t think it means anything.”
    “What do your ladies of sorrow talk about?”
    “There’s only one, but she has different sounds.”
    That summer day, I heard the steady beat of a drum, an intermittent whistle or pipe, the buzz of insects, and songbirds fluting in the distance. I listened to drops of moisture collect on the refrigerator’s fruit crisper, then follow the condensation down the plastic panel. When the trickles merged
,
collided to create a torrent, I heard the roar of angry water that swept away everything in its path.
    “What does she say?” Sable asked.
    That day when I looked up, the sun had moved across the top of the sky. We had a scrawny maple tree that cast a slight shadow in the backyard, not enough to call shade.
    “A woman lay on her stomach, her top untied, her head tucked into her folded arms. My lady of sorrow said, ‘Today.’ Then it echoed inside. ‘Today.’”
    I knew what to do.
    “She said only one word?”
    Sable’s voice conveyed her disappointment.
    “The rest was from dreams. She hasn’t spoken in years. I am waiting to hear from her.”
    We turned onto the walk for her building, stamped the snow from our feet, and stepped down to the apartment. I returned to the window seat and watched the fish. Sable sat on the floor, her coat still tight around her.
    “What happened to the woman?” she asked.
    “What woman?”
    “The one who was sunning herself.”
    “She died.”
    Sable was silent. She examined the backs of her hands, gazed at the fish tank, the ceiling, the door. Finally she looked at me.
    “Were you sad?”
    “About what?”
    “When that lady died.”
    I stared at a small, iridescent gray fish, darting first to the bottom of the tank, then to the top.
    “I don’t remember,” I said, thinking that I never had been able to focus on the moment when Shannon Waycross stopped breathing.

I JOINED BOLTON AT THE INTERROGATION room’s observation area. Inside, a slightly built, wiry man sat with his shaved head back, his eyes closed, his hands clasped across his stomach.
    “John Jay Johnson,” Bolton said. “Also known as J-Cubed. His real name is Dermott Fremont. He’s Vigil’s head honcho. The crew hangs out at Riddle’s Bar in Jamaica Plain. Fremont runs Vigil from there, over his draft Guinness.”
    “He doesn’t seem terribly upset to be here,” I said.
    “Fremont plays the game well. Twenty years ago, Charlotte, North Carolina, popped him twice for statutory rape but couldn’t make either charge stick. We’ve had him in for assault, aggravated assault, impersonating a police officer. Six months in a county house of corrections is all the time he’s done.”
    “Can’t expect him to stay off the street longer than that,” I said. “He has to make the world safe for anarchy. You headed in there?”
    “I’ll go through the motions with him.”
    “Where does Wendy Pouldice hang out these days?”
    “You’ll get less from her than I’ll get from Fremont.”
    “Perhaps I can exude charm. That won’t work for you.”
    Bolton smiled. “She bought the Towers, a complex at the end of Huntington Avenue off the Riverway. She lives on the top floor. BTT occupies the