Why Not Murder

54. Crawford Mills

54. Crawford Mills

To get to Crawford Mills, Maya returned to the road leading to the XX extraction site and walked north several miles to a station where the tracks divided. Supplies and materials were loaded on the train that then continued to run through many different northern communities. The passenger service was limited. There was no train service or useable road to Crawford Mills and Maya would have to jump off the train at its closest point. It would take several hours to reach the place where she would jump. Maya bought a ticket and joined the others in the only car reserved for human cargo. All the seats were taken and Maya stood at the back of the car. One man was standing and looking out the window and other men who didn't have seats were crouching on the floor with their backs against the wall. Some people were talking. Two men who were seated with their backs to Maya were talking and Maya couldn't help but hear what they were saying.

"It's because they suspect a mole," one man said, "The manifesto had been received. The executive assistant in charge of incoming mail confirmed that she had seen it, but had not read it. Can you believe that?"

"No," said the other man, "Her job is to open the envelopes and read the letters unless they are marked 'private and confidential'. She has to document electronically all the mail received. It's even in her job description."

"You read her job description?" the first man asked.

"It's online for anyone to read, and so is yours and mine," the second man said, "My niece is looking for work and I was checking if anything's suitable for her."

"Why would the manifesto be sent by mail, especially if an assistant would read it before passing it on to the applicable executive?" the first man asked.

"No idea. I don't understand why there even is a manifesto. For what purpose?" the second man said, "A manifesto is not needed to understand the motive behind the executive killings."

"So you think the assistant was the mole?" the first man asked.

"Probably, if she was the only other person besides the executive to have seen it," the second man said, "But the executive would have shown the manifesto to the CEO and possibly other executives. I can't see he would keep it to himself. So basically it could have been anyone. The assistant quit when the replacement executives were murdered as predicted by the manifesto. Where did she go? Or was she made to disappear like that reporter was? Personally, I am inclined to conspiracy theories, but I think the odds are that the manifesto was intended to be leaked as an excuse to continue the murders. The authorities have no clue as to who is behind all this disruption. Even we don't know."

"Well, we're all on a need-to-know basis," the first man said, "and apparently no one needs to know anything."

"They say the master-mind was burned alive in the train accident," the second man said.

"Absolutely no one buys that." the first man said. Then the men stopped talking and dropped into ridiculous slouches soon fast asleep.

Maya was looking out the window in the door because it was coming close to where she would have to jump. She had partially opened the door and no alarm went off. No one was paying attention to her. She prayed, opened the door and jumped, rolling down a slope until she hit water. Maya was sore and wet but fine. She could stand up. The train was no longer in sight. Slowly she made her way to Crawford Mills pushing her way through the ferns that laced the forest floor. Now and then it was her habit to look back whence she came, for the time when she would retrace her steps, because things appear different depending on the viewpoint. The forest was silent which struck her as most unusual. The forest had overgrown most of Crawford Mills as well. The atmosphere was eerie. It was misty and visibility became poor but she could still see well enough where she was going. Most of the buildings and what were once homes were in advanced disrepair. The town that had once thrived was disappearing into the past and was being remembered in rumour but would soon be gone from living memory. Maya had heard that all events, past and future, are encoded in the space between all things but only the rarest of people were able to access that.